A Story For Children
by Garmonbozia
Summary: Bedtime involves cocoa, arguments and, of course, a story. But these are smart, demanding children. Once upon a time just isn't going to cut it. UPDATE: Sherlock is *not at all* enjoying tying Mycroft to the office chair. It is a totally necessary precaution and he is certainly not, in any way, enjoying it.
1. Chapter 1

Night draws in, and the children go obediently about their routine chores. Little John goes about closing curtains and blinds, young Rory lights the lamps, and the girls, always so much more careful and trustworthy, make the hot cocoa, set out the biscuits and bring the tray through. Then, as every night, the four sit in a row in front of the television, keeping as quiet as they possibly can in order to escape notice. The quieter they are the later they get to stay up. But, as ever, when the time comes and the television schedule pits _CSI_ and _Holby City_ against each other, Rory and Molly begin to argue over the remote control, and any chance they might have had disappears.

Uncle Sherlock, head and shoulders first, leans in through the door of his study. "My _word_, are you children still _here_?" From another room, somebody delicately clears their throat, "I mean, _up_?"

Amelia, eyes narrowed to slits, glares at Molly. It was all Molly's fault. It always is. Silly, mousy girl. Molly notices and sticks out her tongue.

"Stop that at once," Uncle Sherlock snaps, finally stepping into the living room. Not for the first time, John stares up in blatant awe, wondering how he manages to balance all his spindly, stilt-like self. Then, from that other room, the Uncle enters, his face smeared with motor oil, his hat askew, and John gives up wondering. "Off to bed, all of you. You should be sleeping by now."

Like any other night, they gather at the collective leather shoes of their guardians (though this means giving up eye contact, or breaking their little necks to get it) to beg. "Please", and "Ten more minutes," and "Make her let me watch Holby", and "He pulled my hair". And the leaning is towards the Uncle, well known to be the more persuadable of the two. The keening is tailored to his ear and the hugging is stronger around his knees, and when dear, sweet Amelia steps away from all of this and sits sadly on the edge of the sofa, looking down at her knees, this is all for his benefit.

The uncles, far above all this, roll their eyes at each other, laugh softly to themselves and relent.

"Not a chance," says Uncle Sherlock first. He goes to the door of their bedroom and throws it open, counts them in, one-two-three-four, as the Uncle shepherd them ahead. "You've stayed up terribly late already, and probably eaten far too many biscuits and been terribly naughty while the Uncle and I have been trying to work."

"We weren't naughty!" John protests.

"We only had one biscuit each," Rory joins, and they step up together, defending the girls. The Uncle makes a show of stepping over to the tray by the fire guard and inspecting the crumbs.

"They're right, you know. These are the crumbs of exactly four digestive biscuits."

Not wanting to be outdone by the boys, Amelia lifts up her pointy little chin, sticks her nose distastefully into the air and mutters, "See? We did everything right."

"We did everything right," Molly echoes, "and you still say such terrible things."

Rory adds, "We're really offended."

And John just sullenly grumps, arms folded tight around a stuffed tiger. The toy has, in itself, gone soft at the neck from such treatment.

Still, each of them has gone to their particular bunk and is climbing in. This is the way it happens every night. Their arguments are a matter of course, and bedtime couldn't happen without them, but the uncles will always get their way in the end.

There is, however, one more thing that has to happen. Each night, one of the children arrives independently at the idea, a new approach, a new stroke of genius, but always with the same result. Tonight, it seems, it is Rory who is destined to prolong their waking hours. Maybe it's the profound injustice of being made to miss Holby City _again_, when Molly gets to watch CSI on Uncle Sherlock's iPhone anytime she asks. Or maybe it's the fact that he's been asking for a proper bed every birthday and Christmas since he got big (and he's eight now, so that was easily three years ago), and he _still_ has to lie in the bottom bunk listening to John roll about on the top. John _fidgets_ all the time. All these awful, awful slights are what give him strength, drive him to sit up, straight-backed like a child pharaoh and demand, "We want a story."

An excited, chattering chorus goes up, "Yes" and "But a proper one" and, "But not a case, Uncle Sherlock."

"And not another one about Daleks, because then Molly can't sleep."

"Shut up, Amelia!"

"And not another one about Moriarty-" Nobody gets defensive. Four little heads shake in unison.

Uncle Sherlock, with an exasperated sigh, says, "Then what kind of story _do_ you want?"

That leaves them all a little bit stuck, actually. Usually it's enough just to demand a story and to rule out some of the usual sorts. For a moment, they're mute, confused, looking about at each other. Then the uncles shrug at each other, and the Uncle holds the door open for them to leave the room, and they all cry out at once.

"Well, a story has to have a monster," Rory begins. He started this revolution and the dickens he's not going to lead it.

"And a princess," Amelia adds, jumping on.

John adds a knight, Molly a scenes-of-crimes team, and Rory finishes, re-establishing his power, by stipulating that all four of them must be included.

"Andapirate."

The voice is so unexpected, so small, that nobody can quite place it at first. Even the Uncle looks twice before finally settling at Uncle Sherlock. "I beg your pardon?"

"Put a pirate in it."

"…Why?"

"Just… Look, you started this. You do storytime. I do school runs, you do storytime. I can't do storytime. Just put a bloody pirate in it."

A collective gasp from the children and from the Uncle, "Language, Sherlock."

"It's an important pirate."

"…Why don't you go back to your soil sample analyses, hm?"

He thinks about it. He really does. Then casts dignity to the wind, drops into the armchair by the boys' bunks and says, "No. I'm staying for the story."

And so, with all his rules and inclusions and exclusions so carefully laid out, the Uncle takes the remaining chair, and Amelia's ragdoll to hug, and composes his thoughts for just a moment. "Right then. Are we all sitting comfortably?"

Five voices reply, "Yes, Uncle."

"Then I'll begin."

_In a big town called London,_

_In a small ratty office,_

_Lives a terrible creature_

_Called Gaffatt, or Moffiss._

_With two awful brains_

_And a face like a telly_

_And a laptop computer_

_That pops out of its belly._

_It picks on good heroes_

_And doubles their woes_

_By telling the nation_

_About all of their foes,_

_Their friends, their adventures,_

_Their plans and mistakes,_

_Until all of the heroes cry out_

"_Heavens' sakes!"_

"_You naughty old Moffiss!_

_Just leave me alone!_

_You terrible Gaffatt!_

_Can't you leave me alone?"_

"You already used 'alone'." The children rise as one to shush Uncle Sherlock's interruption, which leaves him rather offended. "What? He did! That's not good poetic technique."

"Children? Would you like it if Uncle T. S. Sherlock did the next verse or two?"

"Oh, oh, no, not me. Storytime, remember? I don't do storytime."

"Nonsense. You're an expert on poetic technique. Go on. The children want you to, don't you, children?"

John says yes. Molly nods. Amelia and Rory shrug at each other. They're not stupid; Uncle Sherlock has _tried_ storytime and there's a reason why he doesn't do it. "Yeah, okay," they say eventually.

"I make that four of four, Uncle Sherlock-"

"Yes, fine, I'll do the next bit."

"Right. I've done the monster. You do the princess."

Uncle Sherlock sighs. He let this happen. The Uncle laid it out and he walked _right_ into it. Now it had better be good. "I can't believe your making light of the Moffiss Problem," he snipes, just to fill the gap. But the Uncle grins, taps his foot. Tells him to stop stalling. The children are waiting. Where is there even room for a princess in that story? What would the Gaffatt want with a princess? It's a terrible story, you know, he's really rather unimpressed. More holes in it than a madame's alibi, in his opinion-

"Having a bit of trouble, Uncle Sherlock?"

"Oh, do be quiet, Uncle. I'm about to speak."

_All by itself_

_In the office one day,_

_The Moffiss got bored;_

_It wanted to play._

_But no one would play_

_With a creature so crude_

_So the Moffiss did something_

Incredibly_ rude._

_It waited 'til dark_

_And it crept to the street_

_And it hid in the shadows,_

_Waiting to meet_

_A beautiful princess_

_So sweet and so pure_

_So the Moffiss would not_

_Play alone anymore._

_He saw one, and snatched her_

_And stole her away._

_But the princess was scared, _

_And did not want to play._

"Oh, heavens, _enough_! Stop! You've used the word 'play' far too many times. You're clearly terrible at this!"

"I told you, I don't do storytime."

John, the stuffed tiger dangling, leans over the edge of his bunk to ask, "Who is this princess?"

Amelia coils forward, "Do we know anything about her?"

Uncle Sherlock, looking thoroughly perplexed, shakes his head in dismay. "She's a princess. Pink dresses, tiaras, occasionally kisses a frog or two. You know. Princess." The children and the Uncle groan as one. "What? What's the problem?"

"No originality," Rory scoffs. "What's different about her? Why did the Moffiss want her?"

"If she's a princess," Molly adds, dimly thoughtful, "why was she walking down the street on her own at night?"

"Uncle? Why are the children demanding psychological realism and technical skill to shame Margaret Attwood from their bedtime story?"

The Uncle straightens himself and says with regal pride, "Because they're used to a bit of class, of a night."

"Speaking of which, perhaps you'd better take over for the next verse then-"

Up on his bunk, John's little head sinks on his shoulders. He sighs, grumpily, "What's the point? She's just a normal princess, so now he's just going to have to be a normal knight and he's just going to have to save her like anybody else's story…" The other children nod along, agreeing, just as disappointed.

"It doesn't matter," Amelia says. Rolls over on her side and pulls the blanket up under her chin. "We can try again tomorrow." John too gives up, lies down. Rory is crushed. This was his night, his idea, his turn to get them a great story out of the two _useless_ uncles and he's _failed_. He sits back into his pillows, eyes glaring and glazed, arms folded. And poor little Molly, who always knows so well when the others are suffering, curls up tightly at the top of her bunk, chewing her fingernails.

In the dark and the _damning_ silence, the Uncle eyes Uncle Sherlock, shaking his head. By gestures and movements of the eyes they discuss the situation they find themselves in, moving quickly on from blaming each other for it to finding a course of action. They can't leave it like this. Quite aside from the guilt, it'll make breakfasts and school difficult tomorrow morning.

Then, in a whisper, just loud enough to be heard, Uncle Sherlock makes his best plan known. He hisses to the Uncle, as though he thinks the children are asleep, "Well I had to do something! You were about to tell them everything-"

"Sherlock, it's a bedtime story. They would have thought nothing of it."

"They're smart children!" Uncle Sherlock lifts the Uncle by the shoulder and ushers him out of the room. Pulls the door to but not closed, and lifts his voice. "Do you have any idea the _danger_, the _intrigue_, the _adventure_ they would find themselves in if they even suspected that the Moffiss was real, Uncle?"

"They could never take the Gaffatt on alone, Uncle Sherlock. Why, four children could never defeat the Gaffatt. Everybody knows that that operation requires a soldier, a doctor, a policewoman and a scenes-of-crime officer…"

Uncle Sherlock begins to laugh, and so it is now that they finally have to close the door completely. The Uncle stands with his ear to it and listens carefully to the whispering, the excitement, to the sound of children they'll never be able to wake up for school in the morning, but who are happy. Children who, for now, know no fear, are protected. Children for whom the Moffiss is yet a fairytale monster. And that, for now, is all that their guardians can ask.

They return, each of them, to their separate studies. Not a word passes between them, only an understanding.

Deliver me, my friend, from the Gaffatt, and if I fall, only know that I stand with you still, and both of us before the children. Our lives for them, in their defence, and for each other. Deliver me, my friend, from the Moffiss.


	2. Chapter 2

But it smarts, for Uncle Sherlock.

Defeated. By a poem, by a fairytale. By a gaggle of impossible-to-please children. God, it stings. He tosses and turns the length of the night, and retreats to the study when it becomes clear that sleep just will not happen tonight. But even in the peace and warmth of that sanctuary, it won't go away. He finds himself reading about stanzaic form, about technique, about the classics of children's literature, and about the psychology of the modern child, since that lot in there are clearly so far away from classic they've lost sight of Grimm and Perrault.

Oh, how it burns, how it keeps him up all night. To blazes with the Gaffatt, with the defence of the children, the _bloody_ children and their bloody expectations, to the devil with it all; this is a matter of personal pride.

As he puts out the breakfasts the next morning, young Rory has not forgotten. It's a glare that would break one's heart, if one were the sentimental sort of sod. The Uncle can't take it, escapes to the laboratory as soon as the toast is buttered, but Uncle Sherlock bears it all out with a blithe smile. Let the boy rage. Let him. He'll have what he's looking for, soon enough.

In the cab, taking them to school, Little Molly can't take the tension anymore. Bless her heart, but she just jangles with nerves when anyone's less than happy. She pipes up. "We decided last night what we're going to when we grow up."

"But you'd all chosen," Uncle Sherlock says, with mock surprise. "Young Rory is going to be a brave leader of men in the world's greatest army, while Amelia keeps safe the streets of home with the Met. You, Molly, wanted to carve up and understand all the mysteries of life and death, and you too, John, though with a bit more emphasis on the life in your case."

"But that's exactly what we need, Uncle Sherlock," John picks up. "Those are exactly the four people in the prophesy."

Thinking to himself, _Bloody hell, there's a prophesy now_… Almost certain he and The Uncle didn't come up with that one.

Just after lunch, from the laboratory, there's a familiar noise and flash of light. Uncle Sherlock goes to the door; it opens about a third of the way before it bangs against the Tardis, and The Uncle slides out through the gap.

"Honestly, Uncle, I don't know why you have to keep that thing in the flat."

"And leave it out on the street for all and sundry to gawp and poke at?"

"But you said nobody could notice it that wasn't looking for it."

"_Nonetheless_!"

"Well, can't it be something smaller, then?"

"Oh, heavens, no. There was a lot of research done back in the old country. That is the single smallest dimensional gap that a human mind can understand without immediately snapping in twain. Smaller than that, and it's goodbye to companionship forever."

He's still so scandalized by the suggestion of parking the box outside that Uncle Sherlock has no choice but to move immediately on. "And how were the Atraxi?"

"Belligerent."

"And were you…?" Followed, he means. Spotted. Did the Moffiss find out about his excursion, will it be all over the media within the year, that's what he's asking, but they've long since stopped putting that horror into words.

The Uncle gives a sad, strong smile, pats him on the shoulder. "I shouldn't think so."

Over a quick cold plate, they discuss the children, their 'prophesy', the elaborations. It amuses the Uncle much more than it did Uncle Sherlock. And so seldom do they get to smile about these things that they let it linger, let it last as long as it possibly can. There, in that lull, Uncle Sherlock clears his throat and asks the inevitable question.

"About storytime-"

"Oh, don't worry about it-"

"No, I… How do you do it, I suppose, is what I'm asking you."

"Nothing to it, really. You just tell them what you know, change the names."

"That's easy for you to say. It's all aliens and adventures with you. Me? Brutal murders, international gangland trafficking operations… _Mycroft_…"

"True. Still, doesn't matter. You won't have to do it again."

"Oh, no, I'll-"

"No. Not going to happen."

"It bloody well is."

"I'm not putting them through that again. You handle homeworks, I'll handle storytimes, alright?"

No. Not bloody alright. And it's not over either. But for now, Uncle Sherlock sits back, sips his tea. _Bides his time_.

In circumstances entirely unrelated to their conversation at lunchtime, and nothing whatever to do with any intervention on Uncle Sherlock's part, The Uncle takes to his bed with severe exhaustion not moments after finishing his dinner. Something he ate, he says, or something on what he ate. But since no one else is sick, there can't possibly be any foul play. All the dinners were made the same; Uncle Sherlock put them out himself. Just exhaustion, more than likely. Just his little brush with the Atraxi, all the ducking and diving to avoid interference from the Gaffatt. He'll be right as rain after a nice sleep. And he should probably drink a fair bit of water too. Maybe keep warm for the first few hours.

The upshot of all of this is, The Uncle is bedbound and unwakable when bedtime comes around.

The children eye each other cautiously and try to slip off quietly of their own accord. Last night is still raw with them. But as Amelia tries to silently shut the bedroom door, the toe of one shining leather shoe insinuates itself in the gap, and Uncle Sherlock enters. "But children! You haven't had a story tonight."

"It doesn't matter," John says very quickly. "We're going to discuss our plan for locating the evil Gaffiss."

"Nothing in the prophesy about that?"

"We have to do that part by ourselves," Rory snaps. He's already under the blankets, arms folded through them, still sore. "We can do it for ourselves…"

"Well, hold on," Amelia says to her peers. She creeps to the end of her bunk and peers warily up at Uncle Sherlock. "What sort of a story?"

"A wonderful one, Amelia. Full of danger and intrigue."

Ever the negotiator, "And the Gaffatt?"

"If you wish, certainly."

Molly, through the corner of the duvet she's chewing on, "Who's the hero in the story, Uncle Sherlock?"

"A mouse. A little brown mouse."

Rory, grumpy, flatly, "Stole that from _The Gruffalo_…"

Uncle Sherlock is unfazed. He makes his way across to sit next to Rory's bunk, picking up the Action Man on the bedside cabinet. "He is a _bit_ like that mouse, yes. Except much, much more intelligent. He's a very smart mouse indeed. He solves mysteries, this mouse. And devastatingly handsome, by the way. Carved like a young Roman mouse-god." Action Man is snatched from his hand and put back in his place.

Rory says, "The Romans didn't have any mouse gods. They used to stuff mice, and then they would roast them and eat them."

While the other children writhe, all the usual noises of disgust, Uncle Sherlock says through the teeth of his smile, "Well, _you_ don't have to listen if you don't want to, Roranicus Williamsus Minimus."

He stops to look up; something is tickling his ear. It is the chewed-on tail of the plush tiger hanging down from above, teasing his attention so that John can ask, "Does the mouse have a friend in the story?"

"A friend? Not really. But he has a job to do, and the only person who can help him is a long, black, evil, whip-like adder, _Adler_, I mean Adl… No, no, I don't, I was right, I mean adder, she's a snake. Long, black, evil, whip-like snake."

"Uncle Sherlock?"

"Yes, John?"

"Is Aunty Irene going to be in this story?"

Molly chips in, "Yes, where _is_ Aunty Irene? You said she was coming back."

"It's not about Aunty Irene, it's about a mouse and a snake."

Amelia wants to know who Aunty Irene is, and Molly is beginning some butchered, childish version of the story when the Uncle cuts them all off, "Enough! Do you want a story or don't you?"

A moment of hushed counsel overcomes Rory's reservations. They face him as one and announce in unison, "Yes."

This time he's ready. This time he's prepared. This time it doesn't have to bloody rhyme. It's an elegant, witty tale with fully realized characters and an intricate plot which has nonetheless been simplified for the children's minds. The super-intelligent mouse detective (the children have rather taken to him, and are battling it out for the right to name him) receives a case from a generally slimy and very blonde rat he's not awfully sure he's related to. He finds it to be a crime orchestrated by his arch-nemeMouse, the wicked Squeaker O'Shaughnessy, and is forced in the course of his investigation to accept aid from Miss Adder, whose true allegiance he can never be sure of.

"Don't snakes generally want to eat mice?" John pipes up.

"Yes, well… This one was already full, she had quite a few mice all over town, so the Brown Mouse Detective wasn't of great interest to her, in that way. As a meal. Or so he thought, anyway…"

"Why, what happened?"

"Wouldn't you rather hear about the rest of their case together?" Four blank faces sway back and forth, waiting for the part they have demanded. Apparently narrative structure means little to them. Perpetual interest and stimulation are all they require. "Well, one day when they were discussing the case, Miss Adder brought the Mouse Detective a secret code. And of course, what sort of Mouse Detective is he, boys and girls?"

As a chorus, "A really, really clever one."

"That's right. And he cracked the code, very quickly and without any cryptography equipment, all in his clever mouse head. And Miss Adder was so impressed that she instantly announced that she'd like to…"

The reality of Uncle Sherlock's audience suddenly crystallizes for him. He swallows the lump in his throat, blushes-

"…Make him a sandwich."

Rory's brow furrows. "I thought this was about her wanting to eat him?"

"Insightful boy… Go to your room, would you?"

"I'm in my room."

The stare between them lasts until Amelia interrupts. "I suppose that's probably a really big thing, for a snake to want to feed a mouse, rather than eat it-"

"-_Yes_, Amelia, _thank_ you-"

"-Yeah, I would have made the mouse a sandwich if he could break a code like that." She says this sagely, perfectly assured of herself. Her gaze is inward, turning it over in her mind and she nods once as though to confirm it. She only even looks up when Molly has to ask why Uncle Sherlock is staring at Amelia now.

"_You_," he hisses, "Were a little girl, five minutes ago…"

They are spared any further elaboration on that topic when, all of a sudden, from down the hall the cry and hue goes up, "_Poisoner_! Borgia!" And then, the bedroom door flying open, the Uncle entering, swinging one accusatory finger at arm's length to indicate Uncle Sherlock, "_Viper_!"

"…She's an adder, actually."

Bitterly, forcefully, the Uncle laughs. "Oh, dear boy, when I said tell about what you know, I didn't mean the one thing you can't stop thinking of!"

"Children, who would like to hear the story about the rubber-faced squirrel and the fluffy golden stoat?"

The Uncle falls across the room to clamp his hands over Amelia's ears. "Ix-nay on the Iver-ray!"

"And how he had to share all his nuts with the fluffy golden stoat because they were special friends, but to be honest, the fluffy golden stoat took off with the bulk of them quite some time ago now? How would you like that story?"

Leaving Amelia, the Uncle staggers across the room, lifts Uncle Sherlock by the lapels of his dressing gown and hauls him out of the children's room. The door slams behind them, and through it the children know the sounds of an argument without being able to distinguish the words. It continues this way, and they hold their stunned and perfect silence, for more than ten minutes, before it closes itself away in Uncle Sherlock's study.

"_What_ was that?" John says, voice low and afraid.

Molly hangs over the edge of her bunk to ask Amelia, "Did you do something else when you said that? Why was he staring at you?"

Amelia slides out from under the blankets and crosses to the little bathroom. "I want to wash my hands."

But they're children, and they're exhausted. Within moments of Amelia shutting off the bathroom light, the girls are asleep and the two boys are following fast.

"John?" Rory says, up out of the dark before his dreams.

"Yeah?"

"Can I borrow your army codebook tomorrow please?"

"Will you do my history homework?"

"Yeah."

Yawning, disappearing fast, "Then yeah."


	3. Chapter 3

The following morning is, as you may well imagine, rather subdued. Barely a word passes between the Uncles and this is echoed in the children. Naturally it is; children are quick studies. Even the least academic of them may imitate with the speed and accuracy of the very greatest actors the social behaviours around them. So the children have assumed dour expressions, the most intensely cordial turns of phrase, an attempted strength and elegance of movement that has left them roaming the flat like so many child royals.

"Amelia?" says John, remembering not to lift his eyes or turn in her direction when he addresses her.

Amelia pointedly pauses to finish the last sum of her homework before answering, "Yesh-" she begins, then remembers to take the end of the pencil from the corner of her mouth, "Yes, John?"

"I wonder if you wouldn't mind returning my pocket dictionary sometime this _century_."

Uncle Sherlock watches from the kitchen table, while cautiously daubing his blackened eye with ice. He feels the Uncle pass behind him, a rush of air that seems deliberately set off to chill him, and hears him muttering, "Boy's grasp of hyperbole is just _stunning_..."

Very slowly, slower than he'd ever normally make the effort to be, Uncle Sherlock swivels in his chair. The Uncle is leaning over the sink, changing the little sticking plaster over the bridge of his nose. Wincing like...well, he _would_ say 'like a little girl', but he's seen Molly and Amelia with skinned knees and frankly a little girl's tolerance for pain is generally much higher. "If you've got something to say about my charges, dear Uncle-"

"Oh, only that they're becoming so _remarkably_ like their guardian."

As if in answer, there's a little sob. Just one, one choked little noise, like a hiccup. The Uncle spins on his heel; it couldn't possibly have come from... But no, no it didn't. It's little Molly, hiding behind the door of the children's room, peering at Rory and John engaged in the cold, deeply formal exchange of their science answers, like great rivals forced to share research. "She's miserable like this," Uncle Sherlock says, with real sympathy. "We have to do something."

"_We_?" the Uncle cries, far too loud. The children hear, and they hear anger. All the pretence and the echo goes out of them and they stand for a moment shattered, staring. The Uncle stops, turns back to the worktop, starts putting out the breakfasts. Hisses without looking, "_We_ did not turn storytime into a _brawl_ last night."

"Please take those jellied eels off Rory's Weetabix. How many times does he have to tell you he doesn't like it?"

"They're good for him."

"...How, exactly?"

"Do _you_ want to do breakfasts?" The Uncle notices he's holding out the butter knife like a sword and slowly lowers his arm.

The children aren't watching the morning cartoons. They've formed their usual semicircle on the floor, but the bright colours and amusing noises are absent. They're watching breakfast news, looking studious during the real coverage, looking into their cornflakes during the light-hearted items.

"Of course we have to interfere when these regimes get out of hand," John is saying.

Amelia laughs, hard and derisive, "Hear, oh hear, the great soldier..."

"They use their resources to hold the _world_ hostage, Amelia," Rory tells her, speaking as one might to a _child_. "You have to take real, physical action or they're just not going to listen."

Amelia rolls her eyes. Molly mutters, "Men..."

Back at the table, Uncle Sherlock looks reproachfully over at the Uncle. And no, it's not what the Uncle wants for the children, yes, he falters, but he's not giving in. He was not the one in the wrong. He'd been drugged and sent to bed while Sherlock tried to traumatize them all, before then proceeding to tear open some very old, painful wounds for the Uncle himself. Not to mention he's _almost_ certain, despite expert opinions from both John and Molly, that his nose is in fact broken.

Broken or not he sticks it into the air as he gets up and retreats to his study. "You can do the school run, can't you, old bean..."

Uncle Sherlock sighs and goes about it. Gets the children sorted, shoes and coats and schoolbags. While he is arranging his scarf at the mirror they gather behind him. "It's not a game, is it?" Molly murmurs, chewing the point of her collar, back on the edge of tears. "I was trying to pretend it was a game so it would be okay, but it's not a game." Amelia reaches down and takes her pudgy hand. Looks at the boys, daring them _not_ to come up with something.

John and Rory go silent. Then pale. Then shuffle. Then look down at their shuffling feet.

"Useless," Amelia spits. "Listen to me, right? It's easy. I saw it in a film at the weekend. It was about two girls trying to get their parents back together, and what they had to do was make them remember why they fell in love in the first place." Rory looks up. Not at Amelia or anything in particular, just into thin air, with a look of deep confusion on his face. She waits for it to pass, but it doesn't, and when he opens his mouth to speak she cuts him off, "_No_, Rory. But they're friends, aren't they?"

John is sceptical. He tells her so. Tells her he doesn't see where they can even start, seeing they have no idea how the Uncles met, and it was probably, like, centuries ago, with dinosaurs, or at _least_ disco music.

Squeezing Molly's hand, Amelia looks at her, shakes her head. In quiet disbelief this time, "Useless. Utterly useless."

Uncle Sherlock, finally satisfied enough the world, hears this and clutches at the carefully smoothed knot of his scarf, "What's useless?"

Smiling sweetly, "Nothing, Uncle Sherlock."

He opens the door and waves them out. "Downstairs, children. Cab's waiting." As he moves to follow them out, he shouts over his shoulder, "Uncle?"

"Mmh?" Small and distant, muffled by the door between them.

"Going now, Uncle."

"Mmh."

He sighs and goes to join the children. They're waiting, all ready, and the boys have claimed the fold-down seats, which is absolutely normal, and Molly is sitting in the corner with her arm wrapped through Amelia's, which is _not_ normal. Generally Sherlock sits between them. But he makes no comment, slides across and takes the spot that's been left for him. Of course, he knows what it all means. Amelia must be the one with the plan. Amelia is going to save them all. So he smiles blithely, emptily, and gets as far as the end of the road before, that wheedling, stubborn, Scottish lilt, "Uncle Sherlock?"

"_Yes_, Amelia," and he looks round, looks her right in the eye, but the brave little stare never wavers.

"There was something we all really wanted to ask you, but it's probably a stupid question."

_God_, she's good. Leading him on like that so he can't refuse her, so he has no choice but to answer her reasonably and honestly. He grits his teeth, "No such thing as stupid questions, Amelia, only stupid answers_._" In itself, it's the most ridiculous thing he's ever heard or had to repeat, but the Uncle has instructed him very clearly that children, if they are to learn and be trained, must feel perfectly comfortable with asking any and all questions. He goes along with the theory because he knows the importance of raising the children well, but he has been asked a great many stupid questions in his life – 'What do you think it means?', 'Wouldn't you rather give that needle to me?', 'How is that even possible?'...

..."How did you meet the other Uncle, Uncle Sherlock?"

He looks away from her, straightens his lapels. "What do you want to know a thing like that for?"

"I don't, really." Amelia sticks her nose up, looks out the other window like she's bored. From the faces of the other children, they were not aware of this part of the script. They can just barely contain the things they want to shout at her. Molly's arm through hers turns into a sudden wrestling grip, nearly dragging the two of them off the seat, and she's murmuring, _No, no, but Amelia, no, because, no... _Amelia lifts them both back up straight, goes easily back to her former, pretend nonchalance.

And she's not going to say anything else by herself.

Uncle Sherlock sighs, decides to play along, "Then why would you _ask_, dear?"

Her head whips round, little brown eyes blazing, "I just want to hear you _tell_ it."

God in heaven, the Moffiss doesn't stand a bloody chance when this lot grow up. Where did she even _learn_ that, he asks himself, and there's an instant of blind, crippling fear, of _sickness_, feeling like adders and stoats are running around his stomach. But he puts that from his mind. The children are staring now, waiting, willing him on. The only way to teach them a lesson, he feels, is to tell the absolute truth.

"It's not important," he begins. "It's no fun, you know, not like a bedtime story."

"Don't care," John cuts in, very quick, and they all seem to concur.

"Right then. Fine. I'm sure at least _one_ of you still has homework to finish but no, _fine_, we'll do this instead. Don't come crying to me when you get double tonight...

"Your Uncle and I met when I was quite a bit younger than I am now-"

"What, like, forty?"

"Rory, do let me know if your teacher _neglects_ to give you double homework, won't you? I was, as I say, quite a bit younger, and I had just gotten out of... _hospital_."

John and Molly, in perfect chorus, "What hospital? What did you have?"

"Pains, children. I... I made _myself_ sick."

"Like Munchausen's syndrome?"

"Molly, you're not watching Channel Four anymore. Anyway, it doesn't matter. I was better, I was out. And a young lady I'd met at the _hospital_ asked me to go to a concert with her-" He pauses to endure a bright rendition of _Uncle Sherlock Had A Girlfriend_, waits until it has quite run its course. "-_as a friend_, to celebrate, because we were both better. And the singer was a man called Morrissey and you're all too young to know about him, but believe me when I tell you he was Go... good, he was very good, and I enjoyed the music very much when I was younger."

"Anyway, there were front row tickets, didn't ask how she got them, and there were daffodils and... And I never got to see it, children, because when my friend went to get drinks, your _Uncle_ swept along the front row, grabbed me by the arm and dragged me out after him. Dashed the daff from my hand and stamped into mulch with the ticket stubs and plastic cups... She never did speak to me again."

The children, in particular the boys, glare at Amelia. She was supposed to save them. It was supposed to be a great and good story, and telling it would make Uncle Sherlock remember he was friends with the Uncle, and this isn't a story like that at all. She sees them turning murderous, raging, sees Uncle Sherlock smirk like he's gotten away with it. Her little hands ball up into fists no bigger than pebbles, but just as hard.

Molly's lip is quivering. Her eyes are big and wet. Amelia suddenly yanks her arm free, puts it around Molly's shoulders instead and brings her forward. When Uncle Sherlock looks down again, he finds himself staring into _her_ distress. He recognizes the gambit, the dare; _lie to _that_ face, stupidhead_... He shudders, recoils. She sees weakness and demands, "Tell the rest. Tell _why_."

"He... I asked him who he was, what the... what he thought he was doing. And he told me he couldn't let me stay there. 'He... He'll _speak_ to you,' he said, meaning that singer I was talking about. He said, 'I've seen how it ends, and it changes everything. He speaks to you and it changes everything. It saves your soul and you don't turn out to be half the person you could be.'" The children don't understand a word anymore, but he doesn't care. Now that he's started, he's just telling it. "And you see, your Uncle needed me to be the person I am now. Because of you children. Because of the Gaffatt-" and he pauses, forces himself to smile, because after all, the children are still supposed to believe that the Moffiss is no more than a fairytale monster. "He said 'Forgive me, my friend, I know it's entirely selfish of me to take this away from you. But I can't do it alone.' And then I called him mad, punched him in the nose and left him there, but it was too late by then. I was outside and my ticket was inside. He'd got his way. And then I saw the Tardis and... the rest just happened."

They're all staring up at him, all wide-eyed, all silent. Even Amelia, patently the lippiest of them all, has no idea what to make of this.

After a while, with the school approaching, John reaches out for some sort of closure. He hazards, "You made it sound like he ruined your life."

"_No_, of course not. No. No... _Well_... Little bit."

"But... But, well, maybe he just knew we'd need you. That's probably better, isn't it?"

Anyway, the cab pulls up to the gates. Uncle Sherlock climbs back across them all. He helps Molly down first, tucks his hand back into his cuff and dries her face. Helps Amelia down and zips her backpack closed where the recorder is sticking out. He would never dare insult the boys to try and help them, lets them jump to the curb. Instead, he does them the honour of silently nodding after the girls, indicating that they should be protecting them on such a vulnerable day.

Then he gets back in and closes the door.

"Kids tell some bloody stories." The voice jolts him, but only for a moment. A smiling, lilting voice like Amelia's. Irish, though, not Scottish, and classless and empty, and he realizes immediately it's the cabbie. "Break your heart if you let them, wouldn't they?"

"They're good children."

"Oh, I can see that. Very clear, yes, I can see that. Angels preserve them."

"...Just home again, if you would."

"Of course, sir. Absolutely, sir. Home sweet home." And the driver starts the engine up again, and not another single word passes, and never once do the dark, smiling eyes in the front lift to the mirror and reveal themselves.


	4. Chapter 4

It is _almost_ nine o'clock. Molly is starting to chew her nails, furrowing her little brow, hugging a little cushion almost in half.

"I don't _like_ this," she says. "It's well after bedtime."

Rory, not taking his eyes from the television, waves his head. "The Uncle _and_ Uncle Sherlock both said they'd be back before bedtime, and they're not back, so it's not bedtime, and we don't have to go to bed."

"That's logic," John nods. "They have to stand by logic, they talk about it enough."

Amelia, looking on as Molly starts to chew the cushion edge, says, "You can go to bed if you want, you know. We don't mind getting in a little bit of trouble, but if _you_ do…" And of course, she means it as a taunt, as an elegant, feminine way of clucking like a chicken at her, but Molly starts bobbing her head, taking it for real advice, and after just another few minutes gets up and shuffles off. Amelia watches her go, shaking her head. The boys don't even deign to look. It means something to Amy to be the tomboy, to be naughty. The Uncle explained to them. They didn't quite follow _everything_ he was saying, about who she was, and who she'd be in the future, but what it boils down to is that they should let Amelia hang around with them when she wants to and that they shouldn't cluck at Molly, and all of that sounded sensible.

And she is _just_ turning her head back to see what post-watershed television is actually like in real life, when Molly screams.

The boys jump up, hanging over the back of the sofa. Amelia positions herself just out of sight, just behind them.

And a voice, not Molly's, not any one they know, is saying, 'Shh' and 'Don't be scared'. A soft, soothing voice that the children are inclined to pay attention to. They don't often hear soft, soothing voices trying to allay all their little fears. That's something they thought only happened in books and on television, where people had real parents and not just Uncles, who used to sit by their beds when they were afraid and tell them everything would be alright. And the voice goes on, out of the dark of their bedroom, saying 'hush now' and 'nothing to be frightened of'.

The more they listen, the more the voice starts to sound familiar, in a strange way. Like it shouldn't quite be in the room with them.

John strikes it first and points. Then remembers the Uncle telling him pointing is rude and lowers his hand. "I know you. You're off CBeebies."

Which obviously means the owner of the voice is utterly harmless, a denizen of that yellow and green world of comfy bean bags and smiling puppet friends, where nothing is ever wrong, the opposite of the insecurity and greyness of real life. Rory climbs over the back of the sofa. Molly is still standing in the doorway, still staring straight up into that shadow, and he pulls her away. The voice has confused her; whatever she saw, whatever made her scream, it does not live at CBeebies.

Rory's moving makes Amelia brave, and she follows. She stretches her hand past the bedroom door, into the dark, remembering her etiquette, "Good evening, sir. Won't you come in and join us?"

Out in the dark, the owner of the voice flinches. "Turn that light off first, would you?" he says.

John, still hanging over the sofa, _nearly_ points again. He stops himself, though. He's proud of that. "You're off Storytime."

And then the standard lamp clicks off, and the room is dropped into the dim half-light of a lamp left on in the Uncle's study. All the children stand blinking, and in that new confusion, a hand reaches back for Amelia's. It's cold and damp and sticky, and she wants to pull away, but that wouldn't be genteel. The Uncle would be very disappointed in her. He'd say, 'You'll meet many different kinds of people in the future, Amelia. And not all of them will have soft warm hands like Rory's.' She always wonders why he says Rory. Like she'd ever want to hold _his_ hand…

So she keeps her grip, and guides their visitor to the best armchair while the voice explains, "I am, young Watson, very perceptive of you. And I met your Uncles, out and about, and they said, they're very sorry, but they won't make it home for bedtime. And they were very distressed, children. Can you guess why?"

That voice.

The children nod and sway almost as one, losing themselves in soft, lilting tones. That accent, strange and familiar all at once, elegant, like the oldest sorts of stories.

"No," they say, all at once, not even wanting to guess. That's the way stories work. You hear the answers anyway.

"They were very distressed because they know you don't like to go to bed without a story. So I interrupted them. I said, Gentlemen, Uncles, don't fret. I'm the Storyteller. And I said I'd come over here and tell you children a nice story before you all go off to sleep. How's that?"

Already sleepy, they're all just nodding, but secretly each one of them is just bursting, freshly excited. A _live_ performance, a proper story from a proper storyteller, off the telly, in their living room. They should have known the Uncles would never just go off on their separate cases and abandon them. That's completely ridiculous. Of course, it's happened _before_, but it's still ridiculous…

"Alright then, boys and girls, are you sitting comfortably?" Four heads bobbing. "Then I'll begin. Once upon a time, there was a devilishly handsome prince-"

Amelia giggles. "This sounds like one of Uncle Sherlock's stories."

"_Hush_," the Storyteller snaps, a little too fast, a little too loud. "There was a Prince. Prince Jim. And Prince Jim had work to do. He had a special talent for helping other people get what they wanted. He could make their wishes come true."

"Like a genie."

"Exactly like a genie, young Williams, exactly like. But I will just warn you, the next one of you that interrupts me is _done_ for. Do I make myself clear?"

That breaks the soporific spell just enough for the children to exchange a wary glance, to realize that things might not be entirely as they seem. And under other circumstances they would gather close, start to formulate a plan. But their eyes shoot back and forth, and take in the Storyteller_. _They remember, all at once, that he is from TV, and remember too the Uncle's word for people from TV. "Diva." As one, they roll their eyes.

The Storyteller continues, begrudgingly at first, "The most interesting part of this story is the black monster." That settles them, alright. Children are easy. As soon as the villain gets mentioned, the macabre element that makes it all so much more absorbing, they're taken. The Storyteller sinks back in the armchair, finding his rhythm again. And knowing this is Holmes' chair just reminds him why he's here, what's so important about all of this, how much he stands to learn or lose. Just amuse the canny little sprogs for another while and he'll be alright. "The black monster could live with anybody, and it turned all their good talents into bad talents, made them help bad people instead of good. And it really liked Prince Jim. It liked living with him, because he was so good at what he did. It just kept telling him that the bad people were more interesting, and he wouldn't be bored that way. And it was right, so he let it keep living with him, right there in his head."

And though she knows what he said about interruptions, though she doesn't want to cause anybody any trouble or ever break the rules _ever_, medical curiosity gets the best of little Molly Hooper – "_In_ his head?"

The Storyteller doesn't miss a beat. "Right in. Right there, inside his skull. He thought it was a made up thing, just a voice in his head. That is, until he met it for _real_."

Gasping, all at once, the children chorus, "_Met_ it?!"

"Would you children like to meet the black monster?" Their immediate, visceral reaction is to avoid mosnters at all costs. But they cannot fight against that part of them which longs for the adventure, for the strangeness, of seeing something from their fairy tale come to life. Therefore, they are all silent, motionless, trapped between one answer and another. The Storyteller leans forward, very cautious of the light from the study. He lifts little Hooper right up from the floor and sets her on his knee. "You. You're brave, aren't you? You want to see the creature that can live in people's heads, don't you?"

She shakes her head, viciously, very quickly, her decision made for her in her heart. Her lower lip is just beginning to protrude, to tremble.

"Stop it," Amelia says. "You're scaring her."

With a bounce of his leg, the Storyteller sends Molly sliding from his lap, and reaches forward again, grabbing Amelia instead. "You then. Are you a bit braver than her? I'll bet you are. I'll bet you're not scared of anything. You're brave. You'll stay up late and stand up to all sorts in the dark and distant future, won't you? And it will be dark, Amelia, have no fear of that. You'll meet much, much worse than the black monster, in the future. It won't hurt you, you know. It hates little children, they're too nice for it, it can't hurt them. How brave are you, Amelia?"

She wavers, torn between the same instinctive tears that took Molly and her own deep seated principles.

Rory watches her struggle, before he cuts in, "You don't have to. I'll do it."

"No," she says, very quickly. "I'm not scared of monsters."

"_Good_," the Storyteller smiles. This one is impressive. Stupid, naturally, but impressive. They have good taste, these so-called Uncles. They chose their sprogs well. "Then give me your little white hand, Mistress Pond." He holds out his. Remembering his clammy touch from before, it is only reluctantly she places her whole hand in his big palm, feeling his fingers spring closed across it with her eyes shut. "And now we shall place your hand to the back of my head." Amelia holds her breath to keep it from rasping as he guides her little arm upward, around behind him. "Can you reach? Not hurting you, am I?"

And there among the hair she finds an edge. The back of a head should not have edges. It should be round and smooth. It should not have edges. The edges should not be sticky and moist, and hot. Not like the cool, sickly touch of his skin. More awful than that. Something living and dead all at once.

She shudders.

Then, in the dark, just over that edge, she feels something snap vicious, needle teeth at her fingers and then-

And then the lights.

The Uncles are at the door, home again. Uncle Sherlock rushes across the room, gathers Amelia up and away out of the armchair. She was too close to see what has made the others scream and cry, but Molly will tell her later, when the boys are pretending they were never once scared, that it was awful, that the man in the chair with the voice from TV was dead, all blue and grey and _sticky_. That the edge on the back of his head was a wound, a fractured great hole in his skull with his brain bleeding out of it. Molly will add that the wound is consistent with a self-inflicted injury, but Amelia won't understand that and won't remember afterward.

In all the confusion, Amelia is dumped beyond the bedroom door, and the other children are shepherded in behind her, swept along in the Uncle's great armspan.

Beyond him, out in the living room, Uncle Sherlock is _swearing_. "What the _hell_-" he cries to the Storyteller, "did you think you were doing? The Children have _nothing_ to do with this, not yet."

And the Uncle is hustling them all into their separate beds, hurriedly tucking them in, one by one. And leaving Amelia to laugh, lingering a while to hold her close to him. He kisses her hair at the temple before he stands back and throws the blankets up around her.

Out there, in the background, the Storyteller is accusing, "You told _the children_ about the Moffiss! I think that means they're _involved_, don't you, _my dear_?"

Rory struggles free, after being tucked in too tightly. He sits up, demanding, "What's going on, Uncle?"

"Nothing," the Uncle fumbles. "We'll tell you in the morning. Children, there's nothing to be afraid of now. Go to sleep, read a book, play War On Thellasus with your teddy bears, do anything, _stay – in – here_."

And at that, he bounds from the room, shutting the door behind him to join the argument.

The children look at each other, John and Molly leaning down from the upper bunks; Rory and Amelia make these sorts of decisions, and _they_ are shrugging at each other. Amelia thinks carefully, then says, "He didn't say _don't_ eavesdrop at the door."

Three seconds after that, they are gathered practically on top of each other, with an ear each pressed close to the doorknob or a hinge, knowing that metal is a more effective conductor of sound vibrations, listening closely.

The Uncle is indignant, defending them. "They are _children_," he says. "I would have thought that was below even _you_."

But the Storyteller doesn't want to hear it, keeps pushing his questions, what he wants to know. He sounds angry, but righteous, like he's got rights and reasons. "What do they know about the Gaffatt? Better question, what do _you_ two know about the Gaffatt that you have told the children and not me?!"

Uncle Sherlock, who has been relatively silent, bursts, "What difference does it make to you?! You're dead!"

"Yes! Exactly! Look at me; it put this bloody evil _thing_ in my head and then when it was finished with me, it just bumped me off. And yet am I resting? Am I sleeping in eternal peace in the bosom of the angels? No! And that's his fault and all, so whatever you know-"

"You are dead!" Uncle Sherlock insists. "You're nothing now. You're out of the game, Moriarty!"

That _name_.

That name is more powerful than the voice. The children scatter from the door, climbing . ladders, diving under sheets, gathering handfuls of pillows over their ears to hear no more. They know that name. It was the villain in stories that were too real to be fun. It gave them nightmares too full of truth to be forgotten come the dawn. And now it had sat there, and been there. All those Storytimes on CBeebies, that was him. The Uncles let that be in their life. That name was that voice that sat and spoke to them tonight, out of the darkness.

"He was cold," Amelia says in the dark. Molly climbs down from the top bunk, with her blanket and her teddy, to hug her.

Minutes later, fast and determined, John climbs down and sits cross-legged at the end of Rory's bed.

"The Gaffatt," he says. Rory nods. The girls straighten up to listen.

"That's what this is all about," Amelia adds. "That wasn't a _story_ he told us tonight, it was the truth. That happened to him."

"And the Moffiss did it," Rory replies again, nodding, nodding.

Amelia climbs down, bringing Molly with her by the hand, all four of them gathering together.

"We have to get it," Rory says. "Tomorrow. Tomorrow after school, we'll start."


	5. Chapter 5

"I got too big," Sherlock says, to the blue man's head in its box, "Too noisy. Time to step back into the shadows."

The blue head furrows its brow, looking perplexed and says, "But... But that's _impossible_. You don't even _know_ him."

"Know who?"

"Well," the blue head grins, "_precisely_."

And back in the real world, Uncle Sherlock gets up from in front of the computer screen, straightens himself with great dignity to his full height, and leaves the room. He finds the Uncle in the kitchen and lowers himself into the next chair with the same impossible grace. He had expected this act of serenity to help, much as forcing a smile has been proved to help cheer one up temporarily. But it hasn't taken. The deep, inside parts of him can still see that cheap television set, the ugly pillar built out to hide the rest of the actor, the smudge in the blue greasepaint and those parts are the ones doing the screaming.

"Uncle. We... We have a bit of a problem."

The Uncle heaves a sigh. "You don't say..." He nods into the living room. The expression on his face is one of shock and terror so complete that they've gone dull, as if he has given up entirely on all things, on life, on faith, on the possibility of anything ever being good ever again.

Uncle Sherlock sees what he sees and forgets, for a brief moment, what he himself has just learned. This is more real, more immediate. This is quite literally in his living room.

The Children, or three of them at least, are seated on the rug in a small circle, crafting arrows out of lollipop sticks and carefully rationed shard from a broken plastic ruler. They are already wearing vicious knuckle-dusters crafted from snap-wrap bracelets and unbent paperclips. Their faces are painted, and they are humming in perfect tuneless synchronicity like monks preparing to walk on hot coals.

Uncle Sherlock reaches out and slaps the Uncle's arm, hard. "I _told_ you they were too young for _The Lord Of The Flies_."

"Ouch!" Rubbing the offended arm, "I haven't begun to read them _The Lord Of The Flies _yet."

"Then what?"

"The Moffiss, old boy." Triggered by the creature's name, the children cry out as one. No words, no thought, just a single, brutal little noise. "They're going to war with the... with you-know-who."

"And where's Amelia?"

"It's Tuesday, Sherlock." Oh. After school art club. More milk carton Tardises and paper doily wedding dresses. "She is, Rory assures me, under strict instructions to use the time wisely. She's making, and I quote, 'really scary masks'. They want the Gaffatt-" another noise of instinctual hatred, "-to see them coming and fear them."

Uncle Sherlock nods. It's a sound plan, certainly, a classic breed of psychological warfare common to all primitive warrior tribes. And what is a child but a primitive man or woman, after all? But the Gaffatt is father to and master of many monsters. He fears their plan might be misguided. A new, more practical thought occurs to him and he asks lightly, "Who's turn is it to go to the 'we're worried about Amelia' meeting?"

"Yours."

"Are you just saying that because I can't remember?"

"You'll never know." The Uncle finally manages to tear his eyes, if not his thoughts, from the horrors before him. Dimly, without hope, he tries using the screwdriver to change the channel away from Disney, but they hardly seem to notice. "Sorry. You came in talking about a problem?"

This remembered woe on top of the fresh one is almost too much for Uncle Sherlock. He gets up and begins to make coffee, lest his panic and hate and nicotine craving start to show. Then, confidential beneath the sound of the kettle boiling, he tells the Uncle, "He's only gone and pulled a crossover."

"No," says the Uncle, as though it is a fact. But in his hearts he knows Sherlock wouldn't dare to joke about it. And as it is described to him his hollow fear and outrage burn brighter and brighter, until he cries, "He _reused_ my exit speech?!"

"In a wry and referential way, my friend."

"It's a message, Sherlock. He's telling us he knows we're in league."

"Then he knows about the children."

The Uncle looks back to the living room, all love and remorse. They are preparing with bowstrings made of cut rubber bands and bless their hearts they know nothing. They know a monster from a fairy story, not a monster from the real world. They are drilling their own version of the phonetic alphabet, one designed to both aid communication and keep them bloodthirsty in the heat of battle (A is for Arrogant, B is for Blundering...). And if anything could save them it might be certain words, but they don't understand that. They know nothing of that.

Uncle Sherlock, with pity and sympathy, jogs his arm. "Shouldn't you be off to get Amelia?"

"No, that nice Mr Fury at number 15 has a crowd of them to pick up. He said he'd do it. This crossover; one-off, serial...?" The words 'full series' hang on his lips but he can't force himself to say it.

Uncle Sherlock shakes his head. "Guest appearance, nothing more."

"Then it's only a warning. If he intended to make a move he'd really push it."

"That's what I thought. But it is rather a close shot, don't you think? I'd thought we might have to consider... _action_."

"_Action_ is the last thing we should be considering. That's exactly what he wants. No, we need to stay in for a couple of days, keep a low profile-"

"-Step back into the shadows-"

"Well, _exactl..._" The Uncle realizes what was just said, what twisted game the Moffiss is playing with them, forcing them to question themselves and rethink until nothing is certain anymore. He turns, very slowly, and accepts the much needed coffee being handed to him. "My God, Sherlock, what do we do?"

Uncle Sherlock is spared the pain of having no answer to give by the polite but very firm clearing of a little throat.

Rory and John are still building up the armoury. Molly, with her homework glasses on, is using a volume of Mother Goose and a hair clamp as a clipboard. She is standing just between the Uncles behind their chairs, and now that she has their attention she leans forward and presents the clipboard and a pen. "Just sign and date at the Xs, if you would." The Uncle, who does so love to sign his name, immediately lifts the pen, then pauses to think. "It's the eighth," Molly fills in, and he goes back to almost signing. Uncle Sherlock snatches the pen away and casts a more careful eye over the document.

He reads aloud, "It is the finding of the War Counsel of the Children of the House that joint piggy bank funds are not sufficient. Therefore, we the Uncles agree to provide each of the children with two-hundred-and-seventy weeks' advance pocket money in order to facilitate the provision of arms and rations to the troops."

"Look at them," Molly says, nodding over at the boys with empathy and an oddly affecting sadness. They are desperately pointing the ends of wooden metre sticks with sharpener blades and she puts her little hand on the Uncle's shoulder. "Do you want to send them out against the Moffiss like this?"

Blindly, unthinking, the Uncle makes a few wild grabs for the pen, but Uncle Sherlock slides it away. He gives Molly back her clipboard, tells her there's a C in 'facilitate' and sends her packing.

She goes, but warily, glaring at them over her shoulder, and when she sits back down on the rug she gathers the boys close for a private chat.

"Molly," the Uncle explains, "is the logistical office. Amelia's specialty is tradecraft and psychological warfare, hence the 'really scary masks'. John is the field man and Rory... I think Rory's in _charge_."

"And Amelia allowed that?"

"Power-behind-the-throne sort of arrangement. They're rationing, you know. They've got sweet allowances."

"But I thought all the pocket money was in the coffers, Uncle?"

"They've been stockpiling. Molly's keeping the key the coffers, as it were."

"Well, she's the sensible one... Uncle, why do I feel like we can't leave this kitchen?"

"Because that's not the living room, that's their central strategic council chamber."

"They're annexing the flat?"

"Technically, we're sitting the mess hall."

Uncle Sherlock begins to feel the same overwhelmed terror he saw on the Uncle's face before, and sits in the same slump for a long, thoughtless while. A vague unease starts to seep through him, looking on as the children discuss something in low, mistrustful tones. He is almost ashamed to say that he sits straighter when they stand up, readies himself for the defence. _Almost_, but not quite; the Uncle does the same and he knows they are justified. Those children, right at this moment, are lethal. They can see a threat, i.e. the Moffiss, and believe that they can defeat it. Until something teaches them otherwise, they'll pursue it with a perfect hatred.

The Uncles knows this because they tried it. And much they might fear for the children, and even though they will allow no skirmish of their little 'war' to go ahead, dear _God_, they could wish them all the best and hope they win.

But the children approach now, and pull out their accustomed chairs on the far side of the table. Rory, and a space for Amelia, then Molly, then John. All of them with serious faces on, and blank, giving nothing away.

"What were you talking about," Rory says, leaning forward over his clasped hands, "before? When Molly came over."

Uncle Sherlock, so much more used to interview and interrogation, states automatically, "We have absolutely no idea what you're talking about." He kicks the Uncle, but it's too late; the grimace is all over his big rubbery face, the blush of guilt, the patchy eye contact. Rory sees weakness and tailors his approach, leaning only towards the Uncle.

"_No_ idea?" he says.

Uncle Sherlock cuts in, "Absolutely none."

"Did I look like I was speaking to you?"

"I beg your pardon, little Williams?"

Ten seconds too late, stammering, the Uncle remembers to answer, "No, no... Absolutely none, no idea, no idea at all, Rory. Just normal stuff. Talking about normal stuff. You children. Your homework. Sontaran invasion of Stryz-Gar... Normal stuff."

"See, now," Rory continues, "That's funny." And as if to demonstrate, Molly and John join him in a small, tinny laugh. The Uncle starts to feel safe, smiles as if to join in. But their laughter ends as abruptly as it started and leaves him cold. "No, that's really, _really_ funny, because Molly was under the impression that you'd been discussing the Gaffatt." John and Molly react with the accustomed noise of hatred and disgust.

The Uncle looks around at Uncle Sherlock, who sternly, slowly, shakes his head. "Just don't even open your mouth."

"Molly?" Rory begins, never taking his eyes from the Uncle, "If you'd be so kind, inform our Uncles what the penalty for withholding information about the enemy is."

It takes a moment for Molly to get the little brass lock off her diary, but once it's open she finds the correct pink page very easily and reads, "Under subsection nine-point-five of the wartime shared intelligence act-"

"This is your fault," Uncle Sherlock whispers beneath her, burying his elbow in the Uncle's ribs. "You and your Shadow Proclamation this and your foreknowledge that..."

Molly, aware that she is being undermined, lifts her voice, "_the withholding of any information as regards said enemy_-" They are paying attention again. She accepts their apologetic faces with a nod, "-shall be regarded as high treason, and is subject to the same punishments, namely the denial of communicatory privileges."

"Meaning _what_?" Uncle Sherlock scoffs.

John, scowling, stands to slam both hands down on the table, "It means we confiscate your iPhone."

Perfectly serene, drawing aimless lines in the spilled salt on the table, Rory adds, "And _your_ psychic paper."

But Uncle Sherlock doesn't even hear this last part. He hears nothing. Sees nothing, in fact, but the red that gathers at the edges of his vision and isolates John's little face, and their rage matches each other, until Uncle Sherlock stands up. He points along the row of now-quailing children with the grim stare of the Reaper bringing down plague upon them all and growls, "Ceasefire. I... I mean, Bedtime."

"But... But it's not even dinner time," Rory tries bravely.

"Then you'll  
>all be eating dinner in <em>bed<em>." He straightens his arm to indicate the bunk house... _the children's bedroom_, and glares at them until they hang their heads and traipse off. Molly's got her head down, hiding her trembling lip. It won't get to him, though, not this time. No, this very nearly got nasty just now, and they're lucky he's lets them off so lightly as he has. "And when Amelia comes home and is sent right in after you, you can explain to her why. If you children wish to be an army, you shall be treated as a unit and-"

He's interrupted by the knock at the door. Has to open the door and smile at their kindly, one-eyed neighbour, delivering Amelia by hand, go through all the pleasantries and the thank-yous and the promise of further favours, all with one hand in his pocket, jealously guarding his phone.

By the time he turns away from the door, Amelia has already rejoined her team and is herself suffering their terrible questioning.

"Yes," John is grimacing, "but what about the really scary masks?"

"Well," Amelia begins, sticking her chin out, "There was clay. And there hasn't been clay for weeks, and there'll always be construction paper for masks. We won't be ready this week anyway. And I don't know if there's going to be clay next week."

"But what about the really scary masks?" Rory joins.

Amelia breaks and shouts, "We made clay dragons instead and I'm going to pick it up tomorrow when it's dry!"

"Who's 'we'?" Rory asks, shaking her by the shoulders, "Who have you been talking to?"

"The new girl!" Amelia cries.

And all of a sudden the game changes completely. Molly looks up, without a hint of moisture in her eyes. Rory stops shaking her and his hands fall limp. John stops looking like he may, in fact, bite an ankle and they all crowd in with little steps and one question comes from all of them.

"There's a new girl at school?"

Amelia sticks her pointy little nose even higher into the air and breezes past, forcing them to follow. "I don't know if I should tell you anything."

The Uncles heave a simultaneous sigh. For now at least the Children are distracted. There'll be no more war talk tonight, and possibly tomorrow; a new girl is always good for a few days of relative peace. Uncle Sherlock nods towards the study and the computer, that damned episode, the _real_ problem they're facing. The Uncle gets up heavily from the table. Together, they start to sneak off, still listening to the rapt children.

"Who is she?" Molly breathes, awed.

"Where's she from?" John adds.

Rory says, "What's her name?" and it is only Rory that she deigns to answer.

"Mels," Amelia gives up. "Her name is Mels."

Right on the study door, the Uncle freezes. His hand, rather than grab the handle, claws and relaxes and claws again, in a sort of strangling motion...


	6. Chapter 6

As Uncle Sherlock returns from the school run with five children instead of four, he is fully aware of the gravity of what he is doing. The climb up the stairs from the street is rendered impossibly long by the knowledge of just how unhappy the Uncle is going to be, and indeed by how dangerous the whole affair is in general. He thinks of that great big face, that abortive alien attempt at mimicking human form, all red and swollen, fearful and frustrated and angry...

He tries not to smile too widely, turning his key in the door.

The Uncle comes through from the kitchen, calling dramatically, "Ah, the Spartans return then, do they? Fallen, fallen is Waterloo Road Primary, for in one school day she has been laid waste..."

"Uncle," Sherlock interrupts. Gently, he brings the perplexed fifth child around in front of him, "This is Melody. Melody's going to stay to tea."

Melody's dark eyes shoot warily to Amelia, who nods her on. With an air of barefaced curiosity she approaches the Uncle, sticking out a small, bony hand and introduces herself more properly as, "Mels."

He hesitates a long time. Even then, it is only fearfully, terrifically suspicious that the world might collapse in on itself upon contact, that he stretches a hand back. Her little fingers close around his, one firm handshake. Thankfully, the walls remain on their ends to support the ceilings, the sky stays above and the earth stays below. There may, however, be a stream somewhere starting to run uphill.

Over the child's head, Uncle Sherlock tries very, very hard not to smile.

But the children are bored now. Molly, chewing the end of her braid, so eager, starts to guide Melody away by the arm. "Come on. We'll show you our room."

The strain between the two men stays constant until the children are out of the room. However, given that any strain is at least three feet above their heads at all times, it goes unnoticed. The bedroom door closes and five little schoolbags are dropped with five little thumps. Then, and only then, does Uncle Sherlock crease with silent laughter and fall into one of the kitchen chairs. "You're not funny," the Uncle tells him in disgust. "You are _not_ funny."

"_Melody_," the laughing detective intones, "_light of my life, fire of-"_

"You're not funny."

"They were waiting at the gates. What was I supposed to say?"

"You were supposed to say _no_!" And with that, the Uncle charges towards the door of his study, murmuring about loops in time, and how loops necessarily have holes in the middle of them, and he wishes most fervently that Sherlock should fall down the nearest time hole and see how he likes it, and murmuring and murmuring and murmuring.

"Where are you going?"

"To _call_ her! Given that you're incapable of taking this seriously, I can only hope that _she_ will deign to do something about it."

Uncle Sherlock highly doubts it. He says nothing to this effect, but goes silently about preparing the afternoon juice cartons and fruit bags, though for five instead of four.

Meanwhile, Melody is sitting at the end of Amelia's bunk, twirling a blue marker between her fingers, trying to find a blank page in an old sketchbook.

"I like these pictures more than the pictures you do at school," she says.

"I had to stop doing pictures like that at school," Amelia explains. "The Uncle said if he had to go one more meeting about my..." and here she pauses, and lines up the unfamiliar syllables on her tongue before carefully loosing them, "sta-bil-i-ty, then he'd take me out into space, wake Ursa Major up out of hibernating and feed me to her."

Over Melody's bowed head, Rory is making slicing motions across his throat with an open hand, shaking his head. _What?_, Amelia mouths.

He puts a finger firmly against his lips so that she'll remember herself. They can't talk about space and monsters in front of normal people. Or about Uncle Sherlock's cases, but that's more of a legal consideration than anything else.

Melody, graciously, is oblivious. She points out a particular page and holds it up. "This one's really good. Is that all of you?"

"Yeah. It took me ages getting John's ears right."

Behind them, John looks quickly and fearfully to Rory. Rory looks away, refuses eye contact, but he shrugs as politely as he can. 'I don't know what they're talking about. There's nothing wrong with your ears. Promise.' All of this, and not a single word spoken aloud. And John accepts this, or seems to at least, and it would only be the terrifically observant who might notice him very occasionally tugging on an earlobe.

"But what's this thing over here with all the arms and the TV in its belly?"

There are warning glances everywhere, but Amelia doesn't need them. With Rory's same evasive shrug she takes back her sketchbook and mumbles, "Just some monster. Like out of a story. Here's a blank page."

Molly, who has been kneeling by the bed, hypnotised by the marker turning in Melody's fingers, opens her mouth to speak. Melody looks to her, waiting for the question. Just at that moment the door opens, and in comes Uncle Sherlock with the tray of juice and healthy snacks; well, he can't have the girl going home and saying she was fed rubbish now, can he?

"There we are. Should tide you all over until dinner..." A mumble of thank yous rises to him. He notices the quietness of them, their odd position about the room, Amelia and Melody sitting squarely in front of the drawing pad, Rory censoring every word that might be spoken, the hasty way the children hid their homemade weapons of war beneath the bed and some _vile_ little monster at school must have made John self-conscious about his ears again and on this _one_ occasion, he decides just to leave it all alone.

The door closes behind him again. Melody turns back to Amelia with the obvious question prepared; "So why do you have two dads?"

So Molly closes her mouth again, to wait for another opportunity to say what's on her mind.

From listening at the door, Uncle Sherlock decides he really doesn't want to hear how Amelia and the boys try to explain that. He goes instead to the Uncle's study, and slides around the door. It only opens six inches or so, and he must be careful not to knock against the Tardis. That might rather give him away. He presses his ear to that instead.

"_No!_" he catches. "For heaven's sake, _no_, don't _come over_! I am _panicking_ about the presence of _one_ of you around the children; _two_ just doesn't bear thinking about!... Calm down?! _Calm down_, River, how am I supposed to calm down, what if existence crumbles like a soggy biscuit dropped in hot tea?! ... What's wrong with my metaphor? It's a perfectly serviceable metaphor. Matter of fact, it's a simile."

Well, Sherlock could have told him he'd get nowhere. The child, after all, is the mother of the woman; two Rivers can only ever be worse than one.

He is in the process of walking away from this too when the study door opens and he is dragged back inside, and into the Tardis. In a fury of distaste and frustration, the Uncle throws him in the direction of the superphone and wails, "_You_ talk to her!"

Uncle Sherlock lifts the receiver with a delicate sigh, "River? Is that you?"

"How do you _live_ with him?"

"...When are you calling from?"

"Oh, please don't tell me I'll live to find out..." No. It's just a case of telling her not to worry about it or not... "I don't suppose you could remind him that I can't turn out to be who I am without Mummy and Daddy, could you?"

"Didn't you lead with that?"

"When I could get a word in, but you have the most convincing way of putting things, dear."

"I thought what I'd do was just keep him out of the way until after the chicken nuggets, sort of ignore the issue altogether."

"_Men_..." she groans. "Whatever you think best. If I'm not necessary I will trust him to your capabilities. Do one thing for me, though?"

Uncle Sherlock rolls his eyes. On three previous occasions he's ended up on the phone with his flatmate's spouse. The first cost him in excess of twelve thousand pounds, with the Uncle having forgotten himself and used the landline. The second led to rather interesting incident with a pig and the Shah of Iran. The third... he refrains from thinking too much about. And now here's another unlikely request from the other end of the universe...

"Depends entirely on what it is."

"Ooh, you're _learning_... Find out for me who _is_ raising me? Just out of interest."

Doable. Doable and, in addition, understandable. Set side-by-side with its predecessors, a very respectful request. "I'll get back to you," he tells her, and hangs up.

Back in the kitchen, he meets the Uncle pacing like a father outside the delivery room. "Well? What did she have to say for herself? Have you found some solution?"

Uncle Sherlock pulls out one of the chairs and points down into it. "Sit." Glaring, uneasy as one of the children, the Uncle obeys. Not another word is spoken as Sherlock goes about the making of the tea until the mug is set down in front of his foot-tapping friend. "Drink." He does, though his eyes never once leave Sherlock. That's alright. Fine. He wants him to be paying attention anyway. "The association between Melody, Rory and Amelia is inevitable and necessary," he says, and the words brook no argument. "If current circumstances could have any adverse effect on universal stability, this fact, which is, in fact, a fact, would not be able to hold true. This in itself would be paradox enough to cancel the other, even if such a paradox might hold, which it can't, being a physical and temporal impossibility. We have nothing to fear, except all the usual. Follow?"

"No."

"Good. Now put the potato waffles on and we'll get this over with." Sherlock stands determinedly from the table, looks back towards the children's room. "You make dinner, I'll distract them until it's ready."

"Distract them with what?"

"Well, I have to get this story business right at some point, don't I?"

"Oh no," John murmurs. He's been leaning against the door, has overheard this, and now stands with his back to the wood, all his inconsiderable weight pressed against it, "No, no, no, no, no..."

"What is it?" Rory asks, with the same incipient panic. Any attack by the Moffiss at this stage, with a civilian in the flat, could be disastrous for all of them.

"It's Uncle Sherlock. I think he said the S-word." Molly sits bolt upright, some part of her little world momentarily shattered under the weight of a betrayal so heinous as being forced to believe that Uncle Sherlock could have said – "_Story_, Molly." She sinks back down, content once more, still watching Melody's busier hand.

Amelia moans. "Oh no. Mels, if we can't stop him and this actually _happens, _I'm really sorry."

But Uncle Sherlock steps in right at that moment, his expression full of false hurt, one hand pressed to his heart as though some mortal wound had been struck there. "You children really don't believe that I have feelings, do you?"

Molly hesitates. The other three shake their heads and say without thinking, "No."

So he drops the pretence. "Quite right too. But then let's have it another way. If you want me to tell better stories, stories that amuse you particular children above all others, then I must know exactly who it is I am to amuse. Perhaps then, it might be best if you were to first tell _me_ some stories."

Which is _just_ sensible enough to appeal to their playground logic, and _just_ different enough to excite them. The only pause is for Amelia and Melody to share a glance, the primary friend conferring with the visitor whether or not she wished to be included in a family game. But Melody is as intrigued as anybody else. She swivels around to hang over the footboard of the bed and asks, "What sort of stories?"

"Well, for instance, Rory; tell me when you first wanted to be a soldier."

Rory looks shyly at his feet. Cottoning on to the object of the game, Amelia starts him off, "He wanted to be a knight first. But then Miss McTaggart at school told him that knights now aren't the same as knights in books and knights now are really boring, and soldiers were probably closest."

"Then tell me why you wanted to be a knight."

Slowly, but with purpose, Rory admits, "Because a lot of people don't do the right thing. And a knight always does the right thing. And I want to be like that."

"Good," Uncle Sherlock tells him. Pats him strongly on the back, like a man, the way the boys love to be treated. Then, like a child, he picks him up and sits him on the edge of the bed, and the boy is dimly smiling, because he has told something from deep in his soul and been validated. "John, now you. Tell us something. Something different."

"Well..." And with only a little more coaxing he tells why he's there, how his parents were so caught up with his new little sister and it was better for him to stay with Uncle Sherlock and learn more grown up things than listen to all the baby talk at home. Molly tells that the thing she cherishes most in all the world is her little lab coat, not because she thinks it makes her important, and she knows it's only for dress-up, but because she always remembers exactly what she wants when she wears it. Amelia talks about being all alone and really really bored in her sleepy village, until the Uncle came and – and they have to stop her there, because the rest of that story really isn't fit for guests.

Speaking of whom, when all the usual children have opened their hearts, Uncle Sherlock turns kindly to Melody, "And what about you?"

Blushing, suddenly shy, "I don't know what to say."

"Well, say anything. We know virtually nothing about you, after all. For instant, Melody, where do you come from?"

"I live at the orphanage." She doesn't wilt to say it, as one might except, but swells, and holds herself straight and proud, refusing shame. "There's a few of us. It's cool. It's like sleepovers every night. Really. That's what it's like."

"And who's in charge there? Who... _takes care_ of you?"

She shrugs. "There's Mrs K," I suppose.

Uncle Sherlock has to swallow a lump from his throat before he can ask what she means. He knows already, only needs confirmation, but before he can manage it, there's a frightened little knock on the door. The uncle pushes it open, just an inch or so, mumbles something about turkey twizzlers, and just like that the children, all five of them, are gone. He could swear he watches the dust clouds fall out of the air they dart off so fast.

Their strange little game was fun, they enjoyed it, but the mere mention of turkey twizzlers has been known to drag them away from even Saturday evening television...

Because they have a visitor, and because the Uncle can't look at her, the children are given the rare treat of eating from their laps, sat in a circle watching the Disney channel.

Gnawing a leftover twizzler, Uncle Sherlock joins the Uncle at the table once more. "We need to talk about River," he says quietly.

"No. No we don't."

"Simmer down; this is bigger than your personal neuroses. It's about her... _living arrangements_."

"I know. Alright? For once in my life I look at her and I know exactly where she's come from."

"But couldn't we... _you know_? Or if not us, if that's too close, then isn't there somebody-?"

"Interference, Sherlock. You were right; she has to be friends with Rory and Amelia. She also has to be raised... Because otherwise she isn't who she is." Uncle Sherlock stares as it dawns on him, becoming as clear as it should have been from the off. "Time travel, my friend," the Uncle says with a sad smile. "It is the greatest trap the Gaffatt could ever have turned on me. You can see her home, can't you?"

Uncle Sherlock nods. Words would feel disrespectful.

The time comes; the orange squash is all guzzled down, the waffly-versatile waffles are devoured. Homework must be done and bedtime approaches too swiftly. So a cab is sent for, and Amelia comes along to see her new best friend home.

As Melody stands at the door with her duffle coat on and her schoolbag slung, careless and _so_ cool, on just one shoulder, the Uncle steps up to her, crouches to her left, and presents his hand again for another shake. This time when she takes it, he doesn't let go so easily, but clasps the other over it. "It was lovely to meet you, Miss... Whatever-your-surname-is."

She shakes her head. "You should just call me Mels."

"Miss Mels, then. Do take care of yourself, won't you? And get the phone number off Amelia, in case you ever need anything."

"Thank you, Uncle."

He reels to hear that epithet from her lips, finally letting go of her, passing her to Sherlock. She and Amelia go on down to cab, just a step or two ahead. Uncle Sherlock pauses a moment with his hand on the Uncle's shoulder. "You know where she ends up," he says.

"I do," the Uncle replies. And then again, convincing himself, "I do."

"Go and call River back."

"...Yes. Good idea."


	7. Chapter 7

Young Amelia is _not_ in her usual spot, when bedtime comes around. There is a gap, left of Rory, right of Molly, in the semicircle in front of the television, where she ought to be, but she is not. No, Amelia is elsewhere. Even though there's a policewoman on _Holby City_ this week and by all laws and rights and everything that has ever been known of her she ought to be glued to the screen, Amelia is not on the rug amongst her kindred. Just that little gap, and Molly lying isolated on the end, looking longingly at the space. Her expression threatens to crumble into tears any moment now.

Amelia is in the armchair, in the corner, beneath the light, determinedly drawing in her sketchbook. She refuses to look at the television, or at all her little friends. That would be like admitting defeat, and that, she simply will not do.

Their guardians, once again, have found themselves stuck in the kitchen, unable to do any more than helplessly look on. The Uncle is taking it especially hard; his tie has been _loosened_, his shirt sleeves _rolled up_. Uncle Sherlock has timed it, and he sighs on average once every three minutes, deep, heartfelt sighs that heave his entire body. He's got _almost_ the same look on his face as Molly does.

After the next sigh, Sherlock begins to count down. _Five, four, three, two-_

The Uncle stands up, ready to go over there, ready to intervene. Uncle Sherlock takes him by the gathers of his sleeve and tugs him back down. "What do you think you're going to tell them?" he murmurs, beneath the children's notice.

It's not as if he doesn't understand. This hurts him too, to watch those sweet little minds tear themselves apart like this. The children are so much better when they're a unit. And so much easier to handle, but now he really is being cynical.

The Uncle, after having a think and repositioning himself at the table, still talks as if he were about to go over there. "I'm not going to tell _them_ anything. I'm going to take Amelia into the other room and have a quiet word with her and… _You-Know-Who_."

"You're not going to do that."

"…I know." The Uncle sinks, propping his head on one hand, looking miserable. "What do we do? Seriously, Sherlock, we can't leave it like this."

Sherlock braces himself. He's about to utter words which simply will not be popular. He doesn't _want_ to, he doesn't even like them himself. But there's a fact that the Uncle is missing and it needs to be stated. "You don't think so?"

The Uncle stares. For a long, long time, he lets the words settle in, worried that maybe there's some sort of problem with the Tardis translation matrix. Actually, no, he's hoping that. That would mean Sherlock never even made that comment. That would mean he never, ever heard those words. He waits. Waits. Nothing happens, and he is forced to react to the words as he heard them. "Sherlock, _they think she's mentally ill_! Molly's on the verge of the world's youngest nervous breakdown, John's mentally arranging to have her sectioned, and poor Rory shouldn't have to watch this. And you think we can leave them? Please tell me that's not what you said. Tell me you're going to start looking at me strangely any moment now because you don't understand this reaction. _Any_ moment now, Sherlock, would be wonderful."

But Uncle Sherlock is only looking back at him with understanding and sympathy; both strange and disturbing things to see on that calm, angular face.

"I agree," are the only words that leave him (disturbing again). "But think about it. If they're all so worried about Amelia, if there's a weak link in the chain, what are they _not_ doing?"

Going after the Moffiss. Planning war. They can't do that while Amelia is at less than her best. Even if it isn't her fault.

At a suitable break, one of the scenes where the nurses on screen are discussing their love lives and all the children are bored, John takes the bravery of the surgeons as his inspiration and stands up. With Rory and Molly watching unblinking, he goes quietly to Amelia. First he tries to look over the arm of the chair, then a little further over her shoulder, but it's too much of a process; she has time to cover her sketchbook. "I wasn't snooping," he says, with a hard-won smile on his face, raising his hands. He rounds the chair without ever taking his eyes off her, as though she were a dangerous animal that might strike at any moment. "I was just going to the kitchen to get some juice, and I was wondering if you wanted something?"

"Orange juice would be lovely, thank you."

Darkly, wincing before he even speaks, "And would… your… _friend_, like anything?"

Amelia's answer is distant at first, almost casual, "No, she's not here right n-" Then she sees the fear and concern on his face and balks, "I do _not_ have an imaginary friend! It's Aunty River and she was really here and I don't know why you can't see her, but that doesn't mean I'm making it up."

Despite the rapid approach of the surgery scenes, Rory knows this is more important, and creeps around the sofa to join the intervention. "It's just… we haven't seen Aunty River in a while, have we? Nobody thinks it's stupid or anything, but that's just maybe why-"

"She was here! I saw her, I spoke to her!"

"Alright, alright!" the Uncle cries, rushing to them before Uncle Sherlock can stop them. In a single swoop he gathers Amelia up, sketchbook and all, into his arms and holds her to him. She, on instinct more than anything, slings her arms around his neck, burying her face against his hair. "Enough!" he tells the other children. "We'll discuss this sensibly and with level heads or not at all. Now sit and watch your program or there'll be no hot chocolate before bedtime."

"We'll discuss this sensibly," Uncle Sherlock mutters, "provided you heed my threats…"

"Heard that," snaps the other voice, as he carries Amelia into the children's room, hooking the door closed with the toe of his shoe.

He leaves the light off. There's enough glow from the moon to illuminate the room. He sits in the chair by the window, with Amelia on his lap. By just stretching out a hand, he plucks the red-haired rag doll from the windowsill and gives her that to cuddle. Hopefully she'll take the hint and stop hugging his neck. It's starting to feel a lot like strangulation. It takes, and she sinks back into the crook of his arm. But there's something sullen, pouting, about the highlights of her face in the near dark. "I don't see why _I_ get put to bed early, Uncle," she huffs.

"I'm not putting you to bed early. We're having a talk, just you and me, away from the rest of them. Alright?"

She likes to be singled out. Grudgingly, she relaxes. "Alright."

The Uncle takes her sketchbook from her. It's a busy sort of a page, covered in figures, each of them perfectly distinct. Four little figures in school uniforms, distinguishable by their hair colours or, as in one case, the size of their ears. Three big figures; one all in black with a blue scarf, one with a big smile and a bow tie.

And one with a wild mass of blonde hair, holding hands with the little ginger one.

"And this is all of us, is it?" Amelia nods. "It's very good. I like Uncle Sherlock's coat." She still refuses to answer out loud. "I think he would like it too. Shall we show him?" She shakes her head, pressing it in against his chest so he can feel it, so she doesn't see when he rolls his eyes above her head. _Of course not_, he thinks. _Heavens forfend I should be allowed to have any back-up or support in an awkward venture like this_. No, the Uncle's on his own with this one. Again. Like always.

Well, not quite always. There was _one_ occasion. He came out of the Tardis to find Amelia crawling up the living room curtains.

"Why?"

_"Bored_!" she bawled.

The Uncle gave it all of a second's consideration. "_Sherlock_! She's having an e-mo-tion!"

The dark head appeared from the office. "What're you telling me for?"

"It's your emotion."

And on _that_ occasion, Sherlock dealt with it. But that's about the only one, so far. No, Amelia is very much the Uncle's domain, it seems. Nine days in every ten he's totally fine with that. The tenth day would break his hearts, if he allowed it.

"I really did see Aunty River, Uncle."

He knows. This is a tenth day.

"Yes, well, Aunty River ought not have done that."

Amelia draws back enough to look him in the eye, with relief and fear and joy all mixed. In the peculiar way of small children, she forgets entirely that he is a being of flesh and blood and many, many sensitive nerve endings and climbs up on him to hold him by the shoulders. Amelia, for the record, seems to be a being entirely composed of knees and elbows and pointy little fingers and toes. "Then you know. You believe me."

With a heavy heart, "Yes, Amelia, I believe you." He believes her. That's why he couldn't sit in the kitchen and watch her be persecuted. Part of him knows he should have left them all to it. With the other children refusing to believe her, with carefully handling on the part of himself and Uncle Sherlock, in time she might have come to believe that she really did imagine it. That would be better. Safer. It's unfair to ask a child to keep a secret from her nearest friends. But he couldn't. Couldn't hold his silence and deny, not just Amelia but River. Safer. So much safer. But he just couldn't do it.

And now he has to ask her, however unfair it might be, to keep a secret from her nearest friends.

He wants to delay that pain as long as possible. "What did Aunty River say, when you saw her?"

The sketchbook is taken back from him, to show another page. The four little figures, this time, are wearing oversized masks, with slit-like eyes and bold markings, like African tribal idols, and are standing knee high to a creature with many arms, and a television in its stomach.

"The Gaffatt. She knows we're going after him. She said we have to be careful, but not to give up. And then she told me that you and Uncle Sherlock w-"

And there, the narrative stops. Amelia fishes a black marker out of her skirt pocket and starts adding bows and arrows to the hands of the little warriors on the page.

"That me and Uncle Sherlock w-?" he prompts.

Amelia, with her tongue sticking out from the corner of her mouth, murmurs, "Spoilers."

Bloody tempting ones, though. But he can't blame the little one; it took River herself decades to stop doing that; that thing where she'd get halfway down the sentence before she realized she couldn't say it. Amelia did very well to cut herself off before she could say anything salient. In that respect, he tries to be proud of her, and not too frustrated, and to unhook his clawed, stiff hand from the arm of the chair.

Anyway, they can come back to what Aunty River actually said in a bit. First there's something more pressing he has to deal with. A terribly difficult thing. In all his hundreds upon hundreds of years, of course he's had to do it before, but he can never remember the words he used last time. He's not sure the words for one explanation would ever work again anyway. It just always takes quite a bit of thought, and there's always a point where he has to stop and swallow through a wet, choking throat.

Naturally, this time is different. When has anything with Amelia 'Just pop down to the school and see the principal' Pond been ordinary?

"She's dead, isn't she?" There are little arrows sticking out of the Moffiss now. The television in its belly has been cracked. "Aunty River. She was a ghost. That's why nobody else could see her, isn't it?" Ghost isn't exactly correct, but he'll let it go. "Why's she dead, Uncle?"

"…Ask me one on sport."

"But you don't know anything about sport either."

"It would still be easier to answer. Anyway, it's not as if you'll never see her again. In fact," and he lowers his voice to a whisper, because this is spoilers too, "you will quite probably see too much of her when you grow up."

"How?" The little voice is just beginning to crackle, just the threat of tears. "You were on the phone with her last week when Mels was here. And now she's dead, and then I'm going to see her again, and I can see her, and Rory can't, or John or Molly or Uncle Sherlock or… Uncle?"

He puts his head to hers, whispering in the softest possible syllables, "Yes, but you must never tell her so, if she appears to you again."

"Why?"

"Because that sort of foreknowledge could cause a massive paradox, of the sort that can't be supported by the intact vortex, and-"

"Stop! Is this to do with time-travel stuff?"

He puffs up, a little offended. "You're going to have to learn it someday."

"I'll learn it whenever you actually ever _take_ me time-travelling, okay?" He smiles to hear the fight come back to her. But the tearfulness is still there, still very audible. She won't lift her head from her work; the black marker moving intently back and forth, forming a box, and filling the box in, and blanking away the face she created for the Moffiss forever.

He jogs her shoulder so her head wobbles. Does it again. Waits a second and does it again, until the stupidity of it makes her laugh. "Is that what you want? To go time-travelling?" A long, solemn nod. "Where do you want to go, then?"

"I want to meet Cleopatra."

"Of course you do…"

"Uncle?"

"Nothing." He picks her up beneath the arms and, very carefully, very delicately, throws her onto her bunk, markers and all. "Tell you what, Amelia; put your best dress on, and draw Queen Cleo your best picture." As he leaves the room, sneaking out around the door, he puts a finger to his lips, trying to impress upon her the very special nature of the occasion. Out the door, he ignores the outright curiosity of the other children and bolts back to Sherlock in the kitchen. Leaning down, muttering as though he has grave news to share, "Taking Amelia off on a jaunt, cheer her up. If there's anything you can do about the rest of them before bedtime…"

Uncle Sherlock says, "Leave it to me." He smiles, as well, but the Uncle is too busy with his preparations to notice. If he did, he might think twice. He might even stop. It is not an especially nice smile.

Uncle Sherlock waits until he hears the Tardis skip from the Uncle's laboratory a mere six feet to the children's room, and then out of this time and place more definitely. Then, knowing he's not about to be disturbed by the Uncle preaching about kindness and understanding and not leaving the children with lifelong mental scarification, he sets about his work.

With the tips of two fingers, on the underside of the table, he taps, mimicking the sound of small footsteps. At the time, his eyes follow some short, invisible soul from the bedroom door to his side. "Yes, Amelia?" he smiles. The same smile. The children don't notice the smile either. They all turn to look, but they're looking for Amelia. Of course, Uncle Sherlock is the only one who can see her. "Milk and a biscuit? Did you ask the Uncle?" By his expression, Rory, Molly and John can tell Uncle Sherlock is deeply sceptical about whether or not she's really allowed milk and a biscuit. But the invisible, silent Amelia must be saying something very convincing, because she manages to change his mind. "Oh, well, if he said _that_."

He gets up, momentarily turning his back to get the milk out of the fridge. The children try to sneak up behind him. He can feel them moving, as if they're playing that game, the one the Uncle wouldn't join in with…. Sherlock was forced to step in, but he cannot remember the name of it… _What's the time, Mr Wolf_? That's the name of it. He revels as much as he can allow himself, before he turns.

"Well?" he snaps, "What're you all looking at? You'll get your hot chocolate, the way you always do. I'm just sorting Amelia out first." He puts a hand down to ruffle Amelia's hair, then recoils as though she were ducking from under it, slapping him away. He points over their heads at the television, "Are you watching htat? Or should I turn it off? I'm always telling your Uncle, all this goggle-box before bed, it's not good for you."

They retreat by a step or two, just enough to defend the television, unwilling to totally relinquish the possibility of a disappearing ginger.

"Sorry about that," Uncle Sherlock tells his most vulnerable  
>charge (after all, she's just air and thought, a fragile thing). He pours the milk, fetches down a biscuit from the high cupboard. At the little girl's demand, he changes the Hobnob for a chocolate digestive. Then he puts his hand at the back of her neck and guides her back to bed.<p>

Just for the hell of it, just to complete the ruse, he turns the pillow sideways on the bed and tucks it in, with the ragdoll's red hair doubling for its more substantial owner's.

* * *

><p>[For Z.A.L, because she asked : ). At some point along the way, I'm hoping to do a chapter like this for each of the Children.]<p> 


	8. Chapter 8

About midday, with the children gone to school and the Uncle gone to – Oh, to stop some other world ending again; he explained the details, but after a while it all just runs together…. With the flat empty, Uncle Sherlock settles to some case work. Nothing terribly taxing. Triple homicide in Knightsbridge. He's got it down to the old man's nurse and the cook's son, just has to figure out which of the two it was. No hurry, though.

Letting the facts tick idly over in his mind, he adjusts the duvet around his shoulders and shuffles from the sofa to the kitchen, trying not to step on the edge of it. He's learned that lesson the hard way. In fact, there are a great number of lessons to be learned about wearing nothing but the bedclothes, and Uncle Sherlock has learned all of them the hard way. And yet, despite this overwhelming evidence, he continues in the pursuit. There is an inexplicable pleasure in private nudity that he simply cannot resist. A pleasure which, since he moved in here with the Uncle and the children, has become all too rare, and he is not going to deny himself now that the opportunity has arisen.

Still, he pours his tea with uncommon care, and not just because it would stain the bedspread. He takes it with him, along with a bag of Cheesy Wotsits from the high cupboard, and shuffles off to the office.

This slight delay on his work has been less than ten minutes. I tell you this only because you ought to know; less than ten minutes is ample time for Uncle Sherlock to have solved such a petty little case. If he had only given it his full attention, this could all have been over. Scotland Yard would have had another clearance on the books, devastated families would have had some closure, the perpetrator might even now be losing their liberty. But he didn't. He wore a duvet and made tea.

And now, even as he sits himself down to work it out, all of his work comes screeching to a halt. Literally _screeching_; a heart-wrenching cry leaves the Uncle's room across the hall, getting closer every second as long, rubbery legs carry the crier to Sherlock's door.

Determined to ignore the histrionics, Sherlock mutters, "Oh, you're back. Didn't hear the Tardis come in." But the cry has died down to a breathy, constant whimper, like a kicked dog. If nothing else, it's intriguing. He turns in his chair to see the Uncle hanging in the doorway, close to tears, heaving for breath and bare-chested beneath his jacket. Sherlock shifts a little, freeing enough duvet to pull it tighter around himself. "Ah. Well. This is…"

"Quite," the Uncle manages, but his tone makes it perfectly clear he has no time for stupid little human notions of awkwardness and impropriety. He hauls off the right shoulder of his jacket and thumps the newly-exposed flesh with his fist. "Look at me! I mean, just _look_! What is that?!"

Uncle Sherlock shrugs. He offers a simple analysis with bland remove; "Prominent upper abdominal scar. Position's concurrent with cardiac surgery, but the line is ragged, unprofessional. More of a tear. Either an emergency, or unprofessional, some form of torture maybe. Why, what's the matter with it?"

"_I don't have any prominent upper abdominal scars, Sherlock_!"

And now, finally, he understands the importance of this. The implications. The meaning. "Oh."

Again, with a little more weight this time, "Quite."

Sherlock gets up from his seat and rolls it across the floor. The Uncle needs it. He understand that now. There is only one force in all the universe that can alter their bodies without their knowing. The creator they have fought so hard to hide from is reaching out, exerting its influence, a cruel, jagged reminder, carved in flesh, that it exists.

"But why?" Sherlock asks, "Why scar you? What's the point?"

"Bloody good question," the Uncle sighs, finally relaxing enough to dump himself into the proffered chair. "There was only one conclusion I came to, though."

"Let's hear it."

"You know, after all, that the Moffiss thinks of us as its _characters_."

"Yes."

"Well, if one were a writer, why would one give one's character a large and considerable scar consistent with traumatic heart surgery?"

When Sherlock speaks again, his voice does not tremble, or crack. It doesn't break. It is simply heavy. He can keep his fear from doing any more than weigh him down, but he cannot keep it from doing that. "To _suggest_ trauma. To add something to his history. To imply some past terror which is still carried, in both physical and psychological form."

"He's darkening me, Sherlock. Trying to, anyway, and I don't quite know how I'm supposed to fight it off."

"Don't talk like that."

"We have to. I doubt the Gaffatt will take things any further than this but _if it does_… What sort of guardian will I make for those children?" Sherlock looks away. Something he's not accustomed to, these avoidances, not being able to answer. The forefinger of his right hand starts to tap, wanting a cigarette. It's a long time now since he left them behind (for the protection of eight little lungs) but he wants one now. "If it comes to it, I want you to promise you'll put me out the door. Don't think about it, don't listen to me, don't feel bad about it, just put me out. Promise me, Sherlock."

But Sherlock can't promise. He wouldn't, even if he was listening, but the fact is he never even heard the request. Something has just occurred to him. In the new silence, he lifts the duvet out from against his chest and peers down inside. Where one side splits from the other, he pushes first one leg forward, then the other. Then and only then does he stop holding his breath.

"Nothing?" asks the Uncle. Mute with relief, Sherlock shakes his head. "Turn around. Show me your back."

The Uncle's scrutiny is intense, unflinching. The wait is pained, and when Sherlock can't wait anymore, "Anything?"

"No."

But if there had been. If it had been both of them. If this isn't the end of it. If it goes on. If the Moffiss keeps up these power games. If there's nothing they can do about it. Sherlock readjusts his feather-and-down cloak and sits against the edge of the desk. "We have to move."

"No."

"We have to. We can't just sit around anymore. This was always supposed to be about protecting the children, wasn't it? Well, Uncle, we can't do that passively anymore. We can't do that peacefully."

The Uncle, however, is unmovable, grim. "That's exactly what the Gaffatt wants. We'd be playing right into its hands."

"We don't have a choice anymore."

"But it still hasn't found us. It is doing this to force us out of hiding. It still hasn't found us, and is no closer to it."

"You don't know that. You can't possibly know that. How could you possibly know that?" He hates the repetition, listening to it as though his own voice were a stranger's. It betrays panic and fear and Sherlock swears to himself he doesn't feel these things. They're buried, too deep, too far away, for anything to betray them but his voice.

The Uncle lifts his head, indicating with his prodigious chin the file spread on the desk, "Your case. Nurse or sous-chef?"

With sudden and absolute clarity, "The nurse."

"You see? Dear boy, if the Moffiss knew where we were it would have brought down all the brute armies of the universe upon my head, and all the evil that men do down on yours. You wouldn't be able to figure it out so easily as that." He gives this information a moment to settle in, for Sherlock accept it. "In this, for now, we're still safe."

There are still arguments to be given, points to be made. They could go on for hours about this. But to the Uncle, in all his many, _many_ years of experience (though among his own he would still be an impetuous youth and would like the reader to remember this), Sherlock is still a boy. Rash. Looking for a fight before he knows he can win it, looking for a war before a war needs to be fought. He's been there. He's done that. And while they don't exactly give out t-shirts, he's got a couple of marks to prove it. Ones that are meant to be there, that have been there for years. Not ones that painlessly and miraculously appeared one morning. What an insult… What an insult to add extraneous, cosmetic details to a man already so weary of battle…

There are arguments to be had, but the phone rings out in the other room. Grateful for the escape, Sherlock mutters, "I'll get it," and shuffles off to answer. "Hello?... Ah, Mr Xavier! What's it been, two whole days since you had to phone us? How many times do we have to tell you, there's nothing to worry about. Amelia just has an overactive imagination and-… Oh. Not Amelia?..." Heaving a sigh, "Oh. Yes, I'll be right there."

He shuffles back to the door of the office, where the Uncle is just buttoning his shirt. Lingering a moment over the last buttons, the ones that will cover what has so recently become part of him. Sherlock can't look. He knows the news he has to deliver will be a blow, exactly when none is needed. "That was the principal on the phone."

"Again? What's she done now?"

"Not Amelia. Rory. He's…. I'm sorry, Uncle, he's been in a fight. With one of Fury's lot, apparently."

The Uncle rasps, "No. No, you don't think-? Not the children."

Sherlock doesn't know what to think. But for the sake of the vulnerable, brutalised man in front of him he shakes his head. "I'm sure it's perfectly innocent. I'll go down there and fetch him now, see what he has to say for himself."

"Don't forget to get dressed this time."

"Hm? Oh, yes. Thank you."

It takes Sherlock longer to hail a cab than it did to throw a shirt and trousers on. In all, within half an hour he's walking through the school gates. Nobody challenges him; it's well known that there are certain parents and guardians who are in and out an awful lot more than others. It's all in the way he walks; there's no longer any confidence or purpose in it. He walks like one who has done this a thousand times, a thousand times a thousand, and it feels like as much to him. Automatically, programmed, he finds his way to the hall outside the principal's office. There, on the same little chair where they always are, Rory is swinging his feet above the floor, arms tightly folded, looking resolutely down.

Never has Sherlock had to distinguish childish grumpiness from any 'darkening' of character before. He approaches quietly, carefully, studying the boy as he would any other suspect. But it's the swinging feet. He just can't take it seriously. What is there about swinging feet that do not reach the floor that could ever be considered 'dark'?

He reaches Rory and stands squarely in front of him. Childishness is written too in the way that his eyes roll up from his Uncle's shoes right up to his face.

Darkness is written in the purpling around his left eye, and a chill runs through the man who knows he might well be the next victim, if there really is something going on.

"What happened?" he begins to ask.

But even then, the door of the office opens. Fury is just leaving, pushing a dark-haired little charge in front of him. There's great comfort for Sherlock in seeing the little one adopting exactly the same pose of grumpiness as Rory.

A moment of mutual acknowledgement; the two guardians nod to each other, the two boys each poke out their tongues.

From within the office, the crisp call of the headteacher, "Mr Holmes?"

Rory, having heard his uncle's name and not his own, leans away, making himself as small as possible. Uncle Sherlock takes him by the wrist and pulls him sliding down from the chair, "Come along, Williams."

Rory leans back on the hand that holds him, hisses, "He gets in your head!" But they're having none of it, any of them, and he is hauled miserably in to the office. The chairs here are for grown-ups, and considerably higher. Uncle Sherlock helps him up before he sits down himself.

Really, he's never seen why the children are so frightened of their headteacher. Sherlock's always found him to be an affable gentleman. Maybe a little young for his position. Never in all his life has he met another school principal who still has all his hair, for instance. But there are one, two, three loose follicles about the man's shoulders, and a nervousness in the way he brushes them off, that reassure Sherlock of Xavier's competency. No, he thinks to himself, it much simply be a young child's terror of overruling authority that makes them all quaver to speak his name.

Today, however, the children's daytime keeper is not being at all affable. He has a _serious_ expression on, the sort where the word 'serious' must necessarily be rendered in italics, in order to fully convey the depth and obviousness of how serious he's being. It's the sort of 'serious' that a little boy can read from a hundred yards, and from which his instinct will forever be to flee. Rory quails. His chair had already dwarfed him. Now he's trying to disappear in it.

"I presume," the headmaster begins, addressing Uncle Sherlock, "that you know why you're here? It should be pretty clear to see, just around the cheekbone there."

Both them slyly turning their eyes to the bruised boy, "And how did that happen?"

Rory can do no more than mumble, "I didn't start it." Sherlock sighs relief; surely if this scrap had been engineered by the Gaffatt, Rory would have been in the instigator?

His breath catches again when Xavier turns his head, saying sternly, "_Now_, Rory, I don't think that's entirely true, is it?"

"Well, okay!" he snaps. "But I didn't have a choice." Oh no. Compulsion! An unexplained compulsion he doesn't fully understand overcame him and made him throw the first punch, oh no, it's all over… It's all over, and the children are compromised, and everything they've worked for has come to naught… "It was Tony! It was because of Tony, I didn't have a choice."

Even though he has no idea what's really going on in those lofty heads, Rory can sense the strange sympathies and pains coming from Uncle Sherlock. He pulls himself up on the arm of the chair, explaining to him and him alone the reality of things. Uncle Sherlock will listen. Mr Xavier won't pay any attention at all. He's always liked all the kids that live with Mr Fury better anyway. It's pure favouritism, and really unfair, and Rory knows what side his bread is buttered on, and he knows who butters it, every night when he's making the packed lunches for the next day and putting them in the fridge overnight, and always on the shelf which is farthest away from all of his experiments. Rory knows where his chances are.

"It was Tony! He hates gingers. Everybody knows it. He's _always_ pulling Pepper's hair at breaktime and nobody even does anything about it. And that other girl, too, the foreign one. She's in the other class because she only speaks, like, Russian or something, I don't know her name, but her too. And he started on Amelia, and she was going to punch him, but I knew he'd laugh at her, so I had to do it first, so I didn't have a choice, and it was because of Amelia, and it was only because somebody was being nasty to her and-"

Uncle Sherlock puts out a hand, flat, straight up, meaning 'stop'. Rory stops. Most of the fingers fold away, leaving only one, meaning 'first question'.

"You acted in defence of Amelia?"

"Yeah! And it was only-" The hand becomes flat again; Rory stops.

Two fingers, meaning 'second question'. "You acted to protect a friend from abuse and ridicule?"

"What's ridicule?"

"Being laughed at."

"Yes."

The hand becomes flat again, but so does its twin, and Uncle Sherlock throws both delighted arms around Rory, hugging him nearly right over the arm of his chair. "_Really_, Mr Holmes!" cries the headmaster. "I don't presume to know how things are at home, but we try to encourage the children _not_ to engage in violence on school grounds around here!"

Uncle Sherlock clears his throat. He puts Rory down, straightens his lapels, brushing himself off. He sits back. Neatly folds his hands. Then, "Quite. What you did was really very naughty, Rory." But at the sight of the boy hanging his head, "Though your reasons were honourable and your reaction speed is to be commended and-"

"_Mr Holmes_."

"And really very naughty. And you're to be grounded. And sent to bed without supper. And when your Uncle and I take Molly and John and Amelia to the park on Sunday, you will be staying with Old Mrs Hudson around the corner with extra homework." Sherlock looks sideways to Xavier and gets a nod of approval. He covers the roll of his eyes with a nod in return. "Now. Let's get you home and get some ice on that face."

The formalities conclude. Rory looks despondent, and refuses to take his guardian's hand in the hallway.

Outside, they cross the playground back to the gates. Uncle Sherlock asks, "Did this Tony boy draw blood from anywhere?"

"No."

"Did you draw blood?"

"Yes."

From the windows of their classroom on the first floor, the other children are watching; Amelia slumped against the windowsill, Molly with her nose pressed to the glass, John giving a small sad wave. Inside, they are snapped at, and vanish as one.

Sherlock looks over his shoulder to make sure Xavier isn't watching from his window either.

And now that they are alone and unobserved he finally feels safe to say, "Don't get in any more fights at school. And when you come in on Monday, if he asks, tell Xavier all those terrible promised punishments came to pass."

"You mean they're not going to?"

"No. We're going to go and get ice cream sundaes."

Rory doesn't understand. But he's learned lessons the hard way too, in his brief little life, and has learned better than to question something that sounds really good. He's learned better than to question ice cream. Instead of questioning anything, he slips his hand into his Uncle's.

A while further along the road, he works up the courage to question _one_ thing. "Did you cut yourself?" he says.

"What? When?"

"Look," and Rory lifts up the hand he's holding. Not a fresh cut. John or Molly would have spotted it immediately. But where Sherlock dressed in a hurry this afternoon, his cuff is hitched a little higher than usual. And there, on his arm, not far above his watch, is a small, dark scar.


	9. Chapter 9

Molly Hooper has a secret. Now, she'll whisper in your ear, but you must promise never to tell anybody, alright?

_Molly Hooper is only seven-and-a-half_.

The other children are almost a full year older than Molly. She was skipped ahead in school by a whole year. That's why she's that little bit smaller and, just sometimes, that little bit more afraid.

As you see, it's not a bad secret. Molly Hooper has never, _never_ been naughty. No, it's not a secret because she would get in _trouble,_ or anything scary like that. It's just a secret because… just because. When they arrived here, and the Headmaster said she should be in the same class as everybody else, Molly decided she just wouldn't tell.

It was not an easy decision for her. She had gone to Uncle Sherlock and asked if this was the same as lying. "In legal terms," he said, "it is known as a lie of omission. But it's a very contentious idea and a good defence lawyer can argue around it very well and in short order."

So Molly had gone instead to the Uncle who, though he claims to be foreign and have come from somewhere far, far away, speaks impeccable English.

"Is that like telling lies?" she said to him, getting just a little frustrated, when she had fully explained her situation.

"Do you think you will be happier if you don't tell anybody this fact?"

"Yes."

"Do you think anybody else will be _unhappier_ if you don't tell anybody this fact?"

"No."

"Then it's not like telling lies, and you should fire away, precious Molly Hooper. And, if you like, I'll speak to the headmaster and your teachers about keeping things under wraps. How would that be?" Molly's response, grateful and overwhelmed, was to throw her arms around his knobbly knees in her tightest, most warmest possible hug. Actually, when it comes to hugging the Uncles, Molly likes being the smallest. While all the other children are crowded at waist height, she has a small, safe place, held securely between them and the legs, and Amelia's scarf might tickle her nose, or John's jumper might keep her snug, and in those moments Molly is very, very happy indeed. That day, when it was just her, the Uncle swept her up on one great arm, impossibly long and articulate, like a crab's, and held her to his shoulder. "I'm glad you came and asked me about that, Molly. It's really very responsible of you. I think you're very mature."

She remembers that. She will always remember it.

And he was _not_ just saying it either. Sometimes grown-ups do that. They say things just to make you feel better when you're down. But then when you feel better again, you find out that they didn't mean it and you just feel even worse. But the Uncle wasn't just saying it. Molly knows this because he _still_ treats her with respect and equality.

Whenever it's Uncle Sherlock's turn to do the shopping, the Uncle sends Molly with him to make sure he sticks to the list, and doesn't make any detours to pick up scientific supplies with the housekeeping budget.

When one of the other children needs help with their homework, and the Uncles are occupied, it is Molly's assistance that they recommend.

And she is still in charge of the Logistical Office of the Children's Army in the War against the Dread Lord Gaffatt. Molly keeps meticulous records of the weapons they've made, the supplies they've hoarded, the intelligence they've gathered. When the time comes, she knows John and Rory will set the plan of action, and argue over battle formations, but Molly will be the one to tell them if their ideas are feasible or not.

Molly is important. Even if she doesn't always feel that way. The other children might be braver or more adventurous, but Molly is just as important. The Uncle, in particular, never allows her to forget that.

Tonight, Uncle Sherlock is out on a case. The boys have borrowed his laptop. It's alright because it's 'borrowed', not 'stolen' – Molly knows this because the Uncles make that distinction all the time. She wasn't quite so sure when Amelia _swore_ she already knew his password. She told Molly she just mistyped it the first twenty-four times. But then she invoked the unbreakable oath of 'Cross my heart and hope to die', even adding the unnecessary extra convincer, 'Stick a needle in my eye', and Molly has no choice but to believe her.

Now they are trawling the internet for information on the Moffiss, hoping for something that will give its location away. Molly is, as ever, writing everything down in her diary.

Then there's a noise; the door of the Uncle's study. The children, as one, freeze.

Amelia mumbles, "Did you two remember and close Uncle Sherlock's door?"

Rory says yes. John, in the same moment, says, "…Maybe."

"What do you mean maybe? Do you have any idea how much trouble we're in if he finds out we've got the internet in here?"

Molly hears the word 'trouble' and squeaks. Everybody is looking at her, just _looking_. It takes her most of a minute to realize they're not just laughing at her being chicken. "What?"

"You're smart," Rory wheedles, looking as scared as she feels. "What do we do?"

The noise of the study door is followed up with rattling in the kitchen, with water running in the sink. And then, sending a stab of pure terror through their collective hearts, an angry cry of, "Gah! Where is it?!"

Amelia dives up under the duvet on her bed. The boys put themselves resolutely in front of the laptop, as though they can hide its glow, both of them shaking.

And Molly Hooper makes a major decision. It is the first time in a long time, maybe even since she decided not to tell people she's only seven-and-a-half. It's a huge decision, and she might be very wrong. Everything hangs on this, and the children still stand to lose out. But Molly gets up off the floor, straightens her skirt down, and goes to the door. "What are you doing?" John hisses. As she passes, he pulls her back by the hem. But Molly reaches down and shakes his hand away.

"I'm going out there," she says, simply. Her voice is steady and level, and only four octaves higher than natural; she's not _nearly_ so nervous as she usually would be. The other children can hear this, and respond to it automatically. They stop worrying for her and watch in awe as she slips out around the door, closing it behind her.

The first thing she notices is that no, they didn't remember to shut Uncle Sherlock's door.

The second thing is that the Uncle hasn't even seen that yet. He is head and shoulders inside the fridge, moving things with desperation and without care. So Molly slides across the room and silently pulls Uncle Sherlock's door into the frame. Then and only then does she creep across to the kitchen. She hides behind the chair at the end of the table, leans round and says softly, "Uncle?"

"Milk!" he cries. "Where is the milk?! I want to make tea and the milk, it would appear, has been sucked into a spatial-temporal wormhole and vanished."

Oh no! Molly quivered, pulse racing like a mouse's, as she realized the carton of milk was sitting out on Uncle Sherlock's desk, next to the empty space where the laptop ought to be. But how could she lie to the Uncle? "Uncle Sherlock was using it as a," and here she tipped up her eyes and struggled, syllable by syllable, through, "me-di-um for bac-ter-i-al cul-tures."

"And didn't put it back in the fridge? He puts everything else in the fridge… Honestly, Molly, sometimes I think _you're_ more responsible than he is." And the Uncle started storming towards that door so recently closed.

"No!" she cried. And in her little young mind, thoughts were flying, at speeds she herself couldn't quite keep up with. Would the Uncles be happier if she told them a certain fact? Yes. Would she be unhappier if she told them this certain fact? No. And that's how Molly found herself saying, "He used it all up, there isn't any more, there's none left."

Which was not just a _lie_, dear friends, but three of them, each following hard on the heels of the last, as though after all these years of determined goodness, of never doing anything naughty, suddenly the floodgates had opened and Molly Hooper had become a very wicked little girl indeed. She quaked as she realized what terrible things had so recently left her lips.

"Oh, well, that's just typical," the Uncle sighed, and flopped despairingly into one of the kitchen chairs. "And of _course_ I can't just pop to the shop for some more… Not after the last time we left you children alone." Molly doesn't need to be reminded of the night the sticky, dead storyteller came to babysit. She loses herself for a moment in remembered horror. When she comes out of it again, the Uncle is looking at her strangely. The same way Rory was looking at her when he was about to ask for help. "Molly… You're a big girl now, aren't you?"

Molly is familiar with the manipulative tactics associated with the phrase 'big girl'. It's just flattery. It's just flattery and just because she's aware of it doesn't mean it's not working. "Am I, Uncle?"

"You're certainly big enough to go to the shop." Molly looks in terror out into the street. It's _sunset_. The streetlights are turning pink, ready to come on for the night. It's _almost dark_. "Now, Molly, don't be frightened. It's only on the corner. I can stand at that very window and watch you all the way down the street. I'll sonic anything that gets in your way. And you can get yourself some of those Milky Buttons you like too."

She does like Milky Buttons. And she does like being a big girl. And if the Uncle doesn't get milk for his tea, he's liable to go into Uncle Sherlock's study in desperation, just to look, and then not only are they done for, but he'll know that Molly told a lie as well.

"And you _will_ watch me?"

"All the way there."

"What about coming back again?"

"That too."

"What if I can't reach the counter in the shop?"

"Go down to the magazine end. I promise you, Molly, you'll be perfectly alright. Get some shoes on, I'll fetch your coat."

It only took a minute; Molly's shoes still have Velcro. The other children have laces now, but Molly still has the chubby fingers of a seven-and-a-half year old and can't manage them. But still, none of _them_ are getting to walk to the shop on their own.

It feels like trust. It feels like a reward. A reward, of course, is the very last thing Molly knows she deserves, but she's in too deep now to turn back. Like Macbeth. Amelia told her that story. Molly's got a feeling there's a bit more to it than Amelia knew (she is, for instance, absolutely certain that there are other scenes in between the ones that have witches in them) but from what she understood, this is exactly what Macbeth was going through.

The Uncle gives her a reassuring smile and sees her down to the front door. By the time she has, with the utmost caution, crossed the street, he is back at the upstairs window, cheerfully waving. At the next pain of glass, the children's room, Amelia is watching too, with one hand clapped to her awed mouth and the other waving the boys to come and see.

Molly turns her petrified little back on all of this and rushes along the deserted street, warm and red with late sun, meeting not one other person on the way. If something were to happen to her, she wouldn't be surprised. That's what happens when you tell lies, isn't it? It comes back on you, and bad things happen. She's waiting all that time for the Storyteller to rush by and sweep her up under his coat, or for the Child-Catcher's caravan to pull up at the kerb, or, horror of horrors, for the Gaffatt itself to come oozing along the street with a sickening grin, unaffected by sonic technology, and swallow her up like a tasty green Fruit Pastille.

Yet she reaches the shop without incident (as any gently smiling grown-up might expect). And the shopkeeper can see that she's nervous and is very nice to her. He gives her a bag and everything, and then, when he is handing her the change, puts a big jelly sweet into her hand. "Try it," he says. "It's special stuff."

And thus, in spite of everything, Molly leaves the shop in a very good mood, eating a delicious sweet of a flavour she can't quite name. Maybe she'll save a bit and see if the Uncle knows. He always talks about strange, foreign food that Molly doesn't understand. He's bound to be able to place this one.

A few times, on her way back, she glances up and sees him still standing at the window. Waving brightly, big open grin on his face. She is starting to feel better. After all, she hasn't hurt anybody tonight, has she? And she's helped. The children aren't going to get in trouble. Uncle Sherlock never needs to know they borrowed his laptop. The Uncle can have his tea. There will be extra milk for the children's hot chocolate. Molly has Milky Buttons. Maybe, in her absence, Amelia and the boys will have found out something interesting about the Moffiss, and her little lie will have allowed them to pursue a much greater good. Yes, Molly feels much better already.

She crosses the road with a little more cavalier spirit this time, looking left-and-right only four times each before she skips on over.

But something stops her from simply rushing straight to the door. It's not so obvious a noise as the Uncle made with his study door or anything like that. It's a terribly, terribly small noise, a soft, pitiful little mewl.

Molly doesn't go to the door, but just to the side of the steps. And there, curled up in the corner, bedraggled from some prior rain shower and shivering, is a tiny calico kitten. Looking very lost, and very alone, and very afraid.

Molly kneels on the pavement, takes the milk out of the bag, and struggles to open the corner of the carton. It pops in the end, splattering a little, but not very much. Then she makes her hand into a little cup and pours some out. When she holds it out to the patchwork kitten, it begins to uncurl, creeps slowly forward, and laps at what little is seeping between her pudgy fingers. It seems to be hungry, and not to look so afraid anymore, and so she lets it stay that way. It's rough tongue tickles the back of her knuckles and she giggles.

She is still giggling when Uncle Sherlock returns from his case and sweeps up onto the steps, almost missing her entirely. He has his key in the door before he spots them. Molly, shopping bag (the plain sort, corner shop sort), milk, kitten; the whole situation is really very simple to read. The only thing he can't figure out is why she would have been sent for milk in the first place. There's still milk up in the flat. Unless it's one of the Uncle's ridiculous, arbitrary rites of passage, little acts of faith he seems dead set on forcing the children through on an almost weekly basis…

"Hello, Molly." She jumps when she hears his voice, so abruptly that the kitten jumps too, back into its corner. "What have you found?"

"Theuncletoldmetogooutformilkandit'sokaybecausehew aswatchingmefromthewindowbutthenisawthecatanditloo kedscaredandlonelyand-"

"Stop, stop, stop. You know when you speak too quickly it's the same as not speaking at all. Now, what I propose we do, young Miss Hooper, is that you should pick up the kitten if you can. Careful now, and remember, if it scratches it's only because it's afraid." But it doesn't scratch. It goes docile into Molly's inexpert grip, cuddled like a baby against her chest, nuzzling against her neck. "And I, in my turn, will pick up both you _and_ cat-" He slings them into the crook of one arm, carrying the open milk carton on the other. "And if you would kindly reach out and turn that key, then we'll all three of us go inside and have a talk."

On the way up the stairs he tells her that the kitten probably belongs to somebody. It might have a collar or a chip. It will have to be returned. If it has no such markings, they will have to advertise, in case somebody is looking for it. Bringing it inside does not automatically mean they are going to keep it. He wants her to be prepared for that, and if the time comes to give the little creature up, he wants her to be mature about it.

Molly is very grateful for the advance warning. Her eyes are welling up at the simple thought of it, so at least now she has some time to ready herself.

They let themselves into the flat above, to a greeting of, "Molly, what kept you, I'm gaspi-_A kitten!" _And the shivering animal was plucked from Molly's hands and held in the palm of the Uncle's, so that he still had a hand free to scratch beneath the chin and between the ears. "Oh, aren't you precious! Oh, Sherlock, can we keep her?"

Uncle Sherlock rolled his eyes, "Uncle, please. Molly, tell him."

"We have to see if it belongs to anybody first."

The Uncle's face fell into a pout and he shuffled his heels against the kitchen cupboards. "Oh. Yeah. S'pose so…" Brightening again, "But she can stay here tonight, can't she?"

With his eyes closed this time, "_Yes_._"_

"In my room?"

"Uncle! Return the kitten to Molly right this moment."

"No. Shan't. Why should I?"

"Because I trust Molly not to develop an unseemly emotional attachment to something which does not yet belong to us and with which an awful lot of responsibility which needs to be considered is attached."

He sets Molly down from his tired arm. She goes to the Uncle and accepts the kitten (a _girl_ kitten, she now knows) grudgingly back from him. In the process, she turns towards the windows, and sees the door of the children's room standing open, just a crack, just enough for three eyes one above the other to be peering out, and just a little laptop glow to be escaping.

Molly goes around and sits on the side of the table that faces them. She breathes out only when the Uncle take chairs that face her, and the whole of the living room is left completely clear, as far as Uncle Sherlock's study door.

The Uncle, with barely restrained glee, fights to be an adult. "Now, Molly, it sounds like Uncle Sherlock's already made you aware of the fact that we must establish whether or not Scrabble already has an owner."

Uncle Sherlock shakes his head. "You don't name the cat," he says, with hard-won composure. "The children name the cat."

"But I've always wanted a cat called Scrabble."

Under the cover of their argument, Molly makes contact with the three wary eyes, and gives them a hearty nod towards the study. The eyes disappear a moment before the glow of the laptop, and they all go to work. The door opens enough to let them out, not enough to make a noise. John takes point, going ahead, then waving Rory out behind him with the machine, with Amelia following up the phalanx.

Uncle Sherlock starts to turn in his seat, in order that he might explain more stringently to the Uncle where pet-naming privileges lie in a set-up such as theirs. Amelia sticks out a hand, which is echoed by John, which stops Rory, and the three stand terrified and frozen in the middle of the floor.

"I think Scrabble's a good name," Molly adds quickly, bringing attention back to herself and _Scrabble_. "We can call her Scrabble, can't we, until somebody else says they own her?"

Uncle Sherlock sighs, "Fine. We'll call the cat Scrabble. But what I need to ask you, Molly, is what if nobody does come for her? Are you sure you're up to all the responsibilities of having a pet?"

"I'll help!" the Uncle offers, only to suffer another withering case from his fellow guardian. "In a purely advisory way and really Molly, as the finder of the cat, you're going to have the most accountability in ensuring Scrabble is well-cared for, and she better be, because if anything happens to that delightful bundle of fluff there will be very serious consequences."

Molly is just nodding, just constantly nodding, and all the while watching between them as the stealth formation reaches the study door. Amelia loops around from the back and gets the handle; they do it this way because she's smaller than the boys and can hang on it with her toes off the ground. This is enough weight that when John heaves the door it swings just a little and is completely noiseless.

Then comes the most dangerous part, while Rory is inside returning the laptop to its place.

Uncle Sherlock has noticed Molly staring, and is starting to follow her eyes. And so she begins, determined to speak until Rory is at least back in sight. "I know it's a big job, having a pet. I absolutely promise it won't be like the goldfish Amelia brought back from the fair. We just thought he was cold, that's all. If we'd known about oxy-da-shun, like you explained Uncle Sherlock, we never would have left his bowl on top of the radiator that night. And it won't be at all like the time you got the hamster for your experiment Uncle Sherlock. We didn't know that was called kidnapping. We just thought the experiment might hurt her, so we took her away. We'll probably find her someday, I'm sure she's still alright. But I think, if there was a cat, and we all owned it but I was in charge, I would make sure she was okay, and we fed her properly and looked after her and played with her all the time. I think it would be really nice, and she could sleep in my bed so that I could take care of her. Then you could take the blanket away. You're always telling me I have to give the blanket up. If I had a kitten you could take the blanket."

Behind them, she sees Amelia stifle a gasp. The boys don't get it, but Amelia knows; Molly can't sleep without the blanket. A fleece blanket of an ugly orange colour. It's been there as long as anybody can remember, and is disappearing at one corner where Molly gnaws it in her sleep. It went with her to preschool in her backpack. She cried sorely leaving it behind for her first day at big school. And Molly is giving up the blanket, for the sake of the cat, for the sake of keeping talking and distracting the Uncles!

"Well," Uncle Sherlock concedes. "I don't see how we can argue with that, can you, Uncle?"

"So we're keeping the cat?"

"Provided it doesn't belong to anybody. And I suppose we should ask the other children…"

Molly holds her breath again; the study door is just swinging shut as Uncle Sherlock turns, leaning over the back of his chair to call them from the bedroom.

His eyes light on them just as Amelia's feet touch the ground again, and his train of thought changes. "…What are you all doing over there?"

Too much of a pause. Then John bursts out, "Hiding! We didn't think we were supposed to hear any of it and you couldn't see us over here so this is just where we were hiding."

"Far too sneaky," the Uncles mumble between themselves, shaking their heads.

But by now, the children are crossing into the kitchen, stretching out tentative, wanting hands. Rory saying, "Can we pet the cat too, Molly?"

"Her name is Scrabble," and Molly holds her out, and likes the funny, vibrating feeling when Scrabble purrs under all that attention. The Uncles mumble something about having their question answered, and then Uncle Sherlock gets up from the table.

"Come on now," and he starts ushering them all back to their room. "It's been a long day for everybody, and for Scrabble too. There'll be plenty of time to play tomorrow. Right now it's time for bed."

They moan as one, the four children and the Uncle. That last voice doesn't last long before being silenced by one last venomous look, and slopes off to the Tardis to sulk (or _maybe_ to go and visit the Catkind, he hasn't decided yet). Uncle Sherlock is left to manage pyjama-time and tucking-in-time.

As promised, Scrabble is to sleep at the end of Molly's bed (though he's not too sure of the wisdom of putting a much-loved kitten on the top bunk). Not _quite_ as promised, Molly's blanket is not taken away, but turned into a soft nest for the bundle, who yawns and sends the children into another wave of 'aw' and 'can we?'

But Uncle Sherlock is very firm. He puts out the light, kisses Molly secretly on the forehead, and closes the door on his way out.

There is an immediate shuffle as all four of the children move in to see the kitten, and to see Molly. "Oh my God," Amelia is gushing. "Like, _oh _my god. Because, like, you were so good with the Uncle, and then you got to go to the shop, and then we didn't get caught with the laptop, and now we're getting a cat. Best night ever. Best. Night. Ever. You're my best friend, Molly, you're totally my best friend."

"Did you put the laptop back okay?" Molly murmurs, stroking Scrabble's tail as she falls asleep.

"Yep," Rory tells her proudly.

"And you shut it down, I mean, you didn't just close it?" No proud response for that. A pause instead. Too much of one, and really scary. "But you at least remembered to exit out of the internet, didn't you?"

Outside, beyond their safe place, across the living room, Uncle Sherlock is calling, "Uncle? Were you using my computer?"

"No. Why?"

"Then I think we're going to have a rather interesting day tomorrow…"

With a collecting whimper, the children all rush back to their beds. Molly gathers her old familiar blanket, kitten and all, up to her chest to be cuddled.

Scrabble is the only one of them who gets a single wink of sleep.


	10. Chapter 10

Saturday dawns. Dawn is when you go to the firing squad. Rory read that in one of his soldier books. He knew better than to tell the uncles, because then the soldier books would be taken away, and the girls would have _cried_, so he told John all about it. He said, when you are a prisoner of war, and the evil generals of the other side have decided you are too dangerous to live, you go to the firing squad. You get a blindfold and a last cigarette. You get put against the wall and then-

John flinches out of dozy half-sleep. At the time they had sat up under the duvet together with torches, and whispered that they would be strong and noble if they were 'sent to the wall'. They wouldn't be afraid. Rory said he wouldn't even take the blindfold, and John agreed with him, but he's not sure that's entirely true. That might just be something he said.

Maybe he _did_ get some sleep. Maybe last night was a dream.

But then John hears purring, and looks up at Molly's bunk. The kitten. Scrabble. The kitten is real so the rest of it must be real. The laptop and Uncle Sherlock and Molly told a lie and all of it was real.

There's movement in the bunk below. John rolls to the edge and looks over, to see Rory role led to the edge and looking up. "Are you awake?" Rory hisses.

John nods, "Yeah."

"Did you ever go to sleep?"

"Not really. Did you?"

Rory shakes his head. "We are in _so_ much trouble. We're going to get grounded and banned from computers and no biscuits ever again. And they won't let us keep the kitten."

No. They can't let that happen. Scrabble is their responsibility, and at least until they find her owner, Scrabble needs them. The children have an _obligation_. Miss McTaggart taught them that word. It means a thing you have to do, and if you don't do it or if you make excuses then you're not a good person. John wants to be a doctor, and doctors have to be good people.

You see his dilemma, don't you? And it's not just the kitten to think of. There are the girls too. He and Rory are stronger, but the girls wouldn't last two days without biscuits. Amelia and Molly are always flagging by morning break at school. By lunchtime, without a biscuit, _well_… John hates to say it, but two of his best friends could be _d-e-a-d ._

No. John's not standing for it.

He sits up, straightens his pyjamas and climbs down. Then he climbs back up again and gets his tiger from next to the pillow. Not that he needs it or anything. He's not a little kid that has to hold on to a stuffed toy all the time. He's way bigger than that now. He could leave the tiger there if he wanted to. But the morning is cold, and the tiger's been next to him all night, so it's still a bit warm. _That's_ why he gets it. For _warmth_. He gets back down again. Rory has sat up, has cleared a space at the end of the bed for him to sit. He thinks they're going to discuss a strategy.

John smiles bravely and heads instead for the bedroom door.

"Where are you going?" Rory asks. He sounds nervous, and like he thinks John is about to do something really very stupid.

Which he might be, now that he thinks about it.

"If the girls wake up, just tell them to pretend to be asleep."

Amelia sits bolt upright, chewing the end of her ponytail. Mumbling through it, "Yeah, we haven't slept either. What're we going to do? They'll send us to live in the orphanage with Mels and I really like Mels but I don't want to live in the orphanage. They get other people's old toys and all their books are falling apart and I need markers and all the markers at the orphanage are dry."

Molly, who cannot sit up, who can do little more than tremble in the little ball she's made of herself, whimpers, "And Rory's right; they'll take Scrabble away. She'll go to the pound and if she doesn't have an owner then they'll…"

Molly breaks off crying and John knows why. It was in the movie on TV last Sunday afternoon, and even though the talking animals got away in the end, Molly was already in tears. _D-e-a-d._

"Everybody just stay in here," he tells them. "Just wait, okay? The Uncle always comes in to get us up on a Saturday, right? Just pretend you're still sleeping, okay?" At the door, he turns and salutes. It's not a very sharp or polished salute. His arm isn't really  
>long enough, and he can't make his first two fingers lie side by side the way you're supposed to. But he means it. Rory salutes back. It's something they do sometimes. Rory will keep the girls and Scrabble safe here. John trusts him with that.<p>

And then he leaves the children's room, not knowing if he will ever return again.

If they make him go and live in the orphanage (something that hadn't crossed his mind until Amelia said it) he'll run away. He's not staying there. He'll break out. If Mels wants to come she can come. She was cool enough. And they'll rescue Scrabble from the pound and everything will be okay.

Thus, John knows he has a plan for every eventuality. He is ready for a life without biscuits, and he goes willingly unto his fate. He asks for no blindfold, and cigarettes are bleugh.

But you get a last meal. This wasn't in one of Rory's books, this was on TV. Holby City wasn't on because of tennis and they watched a police program on Channel 5. When something really terrible is going to happen to you, you're allowed to have whatever you want for your last meal.

The Uncles aren't up yet. John, for his (possibly) final breakfast, chooses Coco Pops. They're in the high cupboard, but he pulls over a chair. They're allowed sweet cereal on a Saturday anyway. He gets down the box and a bowl and pours. When he opens the fridge, a stab of fear and guilt goes through his heart; there are two cartons of milk. One was brought home by Molly from the shop last night. One was sitting on Uncle Sherlock's desk and they pretended it wasn't there. John uses up the last of that one on his cereal, as if ending it, as if throwing away the carton, could make things better.

He eats half the Coco Pops while they're crunchy, waits until the rest turn the milk chocolatey and finishes them. Then slurps the chocolate milk away, washes the bowl and spoon and dries his face.

And then John Watson, aged eight-and-five-months, holding a toy tiger by the scruff, waits in his pyjamas for the inevitable. It's a little after six-thirty in the morning, so he might have a bit of a wait on his hands. Suffice to say, he is brave for the most part, and only once catches himself snivelling. Once or twice the door of the children's room creeps open, and he'll see just one of Amelia's eyes spying. She's a good agent. She'll serve them well in their pursuit of the Gaffatt, even if John's no longer around to co-ordinate the field efforts.

He is sitting with his chin up at the kitchen table when Uncle Sherlock emerges blearily, not from his room but from his office. He is mumbling chemical formulae like a song stuck in his head, and seems to have come out for no more than a glass of water. He is standing almost on top of John before he spots him.

John opens his mouth to speak, and Uncle Sherlock raises a silencing hand. "But-"

"Oh, I have my suspicions why you're up so early, young Watson, and I'd still like you hold off just a moment. We're going to talk, and it may take some time. I'd like to write something down before we begin."

Of course, Uncle Sherlock has no need of written notes. Not for simple equations anyway, not for the sort of reactions that are going to tell him the elemental breakdown of the substance found on the victim's shoe. He can return to chemistry like that on a heartbeat. But John is not quite sweating just yet, not physically. Sherlock writes, and watches the eyes follow the tip of his pen across the page, brackets and subtext and surtext and annotations. He makes it a _little_ longer than strictly necessary. And when the first bead breaks on the boy's forehead, when the hand that chokes the tiger grows a little tighter, then he stops. Turns to John. Triggers his fevered, burning confessions with a nod of his head.

"I know why you're really, really angry-"

"Am I?"

"…Yes."

"Alright then. Let's wait until the other children get up, shall we?"

"No."

Uncle Sherlock is shocked. Sits back a little. Folds his arms. "…Beg your pardon, John?"

There's a tremor, a crack in his voice, the bob of a tiny, nascent Adam's apple. "They didn't have anything to do with it. It was just me. All of it. The laptop and the internet and everything. It was just me."

"Oh, now, I don't think that's true, do you? Miss Hooper, for instance, has some explaining to do."

John shakes his head again, harder. "Molly didn't want to. I told her what to say and everything. I told her it was because of the Gaffatt."

_Oh_, thinks Uncle Sherlock, _well, these are interesting developments. _Somewhere in the last twenty-four hours an awful lot of growing up has gone on, and he's not sure either himself or the Uncle even had anything to do with it. First Molly, now this. Very interesting indeed.

He turns his chair, then reaches out and turns John's (it screeches a little on the floortiles, and the other children shudder, cry out as one. They gather on Amelia's bed, closest to the door.) Now, sitting knee to knee, Uncle Sherlock stares at John until he meets his eyes. "You understand this is very serious? Aside from the initial theft, and the deception involved in trying to cover it up… which you didn't do very well and that's disappointing too… you're now telling me you lied, and that you encouraged Molly to lie, and that you preyed on her fear of the Moffiss in order to manipulate her into complying. Is that what you're saying?"

"…What was the last bit again?"

"You made her scared so she'd do what you wanted."

Definitely, with a single, sharp nod, "Yes."

From the other room, Molly cries out, "_No_!" before Rory claps a hand to her mouth.

"Do you know what he's doing for us?" he hisses in her ear. "Do you want him to be doing it for nothing?"

She shakes her head and he releases her. Molly dives under Amelia's arm and curls miserably against the pillows. Amelia takes custody of Scrabble so she won't have to watch her new mummy cry.

The Uncle, who vromphed in from an evening in the ice forests of Calexifor in the middle of all this, and whose study is positioned quite handily between the two rooms, fills his mouth with the end of an old scarf to stifle his giggling. It's not working. He can still hear himself, and can still be heard sniggering by Uncle Sherlock.

Sherlock wishes he wouldn't. It's getting very difficult to keep his own amusement under control.

Or it was, until he remembers the next question he has to ask.

"John, I couldn't help but notice what you childr- what _you_, John, were using my laptop for to begin with. Your Uncle and I really must insist you drop this ridiculous obsession with the Gaffatt. You're eight years old. Even if there was anything you could do, it wouldn't be safe."

This, however, is not a conversation John is willing to have. He says, in tones which he hopes will end this part of the argument, "Eight and five months."

"You are very young," Uncle Sherlock insists. "Your Uncle and I work very hard so that you have a long, and happy, and unobserved life. Once the Gaffatt finds you, that's it, over, the end. I'm not sure you entirely understand that."

"…Like Mufasa? D-e-a-d?"

_Worse_, Sherlock thinks, _like Simba afterward_. But he can't say that to the boy; he'll start thinking he gets to be king someday, and King John is a different film entirely. He could try and explain about the Chinese, whose greatest curse is to say, 'May you live in interesting times', but the children are apt to think that's a good thing too. It's easier, when you're eight-and-five-months old. It's easy to crave excitement. How much harder for them to dream of the day when they might begin to feel old, when they might crave above all else in this world a moment's peace.

He settles, eventually, "Quite possibly d-e-a-d, yes." It's true, after all. "Now, John, I want you to go very quietly back to your room and get dressed. Then empty out your schoolbag and pack all the things you would usually bring to a sleepover. And leave those pyjamas out for the wash. You think I don't notice, but I do, and you've been told before; you cannot wear the jungle ones every night. They have to go to the laundrette sometimes."

"Rory's Spiderman ones went to the laundrette and the trousers didn't come back."

Nastily reminding John that it's not nice to play on people's fears, "Yes, well, the Moffiss got them, didn't it?"

John lowers his head and slips down off his chair. Uncle Sherlock can only see him from the top of his head, but even down that profile he can see the trembling, wet bottom lip stuck out. But the eyes stay down, and the hand dragged across them is very swift and tough and trying to be a fist. John goes wordlessly, acceptingly, about following his orders. Go to his room. Get dressed. Leave out his pyjamas. Pack a sleepover bag.

He opens the door and faces the little cluster on the bed. "I'm going to the orphanage."

"No!" Molly says again. She clambers towards the edge, ready to go and confess everything, to bare her soul, but the others hold her back.

Rory stands up. He puts a hand on John's shoulder, really firm, like on TV. Says, "We'll come for you. We've been talking about it, and wherever they send you we'll come and get you again. We need you, mate, for the Moffiss."

"What about Scrabble?" Amelia asks, hugging the cat with one arm and Molly with the other. Scrabble, for her part, seems to have missed entirely the gravity of the situation, and is playing with the hair of Amelia's ragdoll.

"He didn't mention her. I think we're okay on Scrabble now that Molly's in the clear. I have to get dressed and start packing."

Molly sniffs hard to manage, "You can take my blanket if you want."

"And my army codebook."

"And some of my markers."

"Thanks everybody. It's okay." John walks away from them, gets some clothes from the dresser, and closes himself into the little bathroom. He hums a song so he won't be thinking of how much he's really, really going to miss them all.

The Uncle comes out into the kitchen finally. Sherlock points up at him. "You. Laughing. I was trying to be a disciplinarian."

"You couldn't hear the rest of them. Molly's being silenced for her own good and the good of the cat."

Sherlock barks laughter just once before he stops himself. "Oh, God, should we be happy about this?"

"Yes. This means that whatever we're doing, they're coming out okay."

"They're coming out daft enough to take the wrap for a stunt like this."

"Sherlock, I think you mean _loyal_ enough."

"I _think_ I mean daft enough, Uncle.

"Loyal. And smart. And very determined. Devoted, when they've got a cause." Sherlock stops. Must be too early in the morning, or his brain is still stuck on his case work, because he's missed this until now. He thought John came out here to suffer the blame out of simple friendship, but that's not it. No, he came out because it's better one of them be punished than all four. One of them is punished and that still leaves the other three free to pursue… the _cause_. "Oh. Oh, Sherlock, dear boy, don't tell me you hadn't… Did you just get, as the hip young things say, _played_, by an eight-year-old?"

"That's it. I was just going to make the little bugger pack to scare him, but that is _it_."

"Mmh, what _is_ he packing for?"

"I thought we might move him up the attic for a couple of days. Teach him a thing or two about acting the patsy."

"Sherlock, there are _spiders_ up there!"

"Oh, we won't make him hunt; we'll bring him supper."

The Uncle is about to admonish him for that, but the door of the children's room opens. At first it's just John, in shorts and t-shirt that don't match, in little desert boots he got at Christmas. His schoolbag on his back, with the tiger hanging on one of the straps. Not that he needs it or anything. Just in case they don't have pillows at the orphanage. He's being silent and very courageous.

Then the other children break, can't stand it anymore, and come flooding out. First it's Molly, teary-eyed and runny-nosed, rushing to hug Uncle Sherlock's leg at the knee, sobbing and begging and utterly incomprehensible. Then Amelia, standing in front of the Uncle, stamping her foot, both hands stuck out to hold him back. And Rory, standing sternly between them and John, jaw set, looking grimly at the floor. A tiny dawn chorus of 'no-no-no-you-can't' and 'no'.

Up above all of this, looking from the top of Molly's head to middle-distance, Sherlock begins to look confused. That's what it looks like anyway. The Uncle doesn't have much experience of Sherlock being confused to compare it with, but that's _definitely_ how it looks. The furrowed brow, the down-turned mouth, the slight creasing of one eye… Yeah, _confusion_. "What's the matter?" he asks warily.

"Is it just me or are we doing alright at this… _parenting_ thing?"

"Aside from that time we mentioned the Moffiss, yes. Please don't look so shocked about it."

"I'm not, I just… Do we get prizes or something?"

The Uncle only smiles, as Amelia balls up her fists and starts drumming at his stomach.


	11. Chapter 11

John is still in exile. He's being separated from the rest of them for the _whole weekend_. It'll be after school on Monday before he's allowed to come back to their room, and his own bed. The children, in ritual effigy, have tucked in their various sleeping companions (Amelia's ragdoll, Molly's blanket, Rory's Action Man), where he ought to be. It's the only way they've been able to sleep at all.

And they are _not_ friends with the Uncles.

Yesterday afternoon, after sentence had been passed, Rory and the Uncle went out to put up 'Found' posters with Scrabble's picture on them. It should have been Molly's job, but Molly had trouble stopping crying after John's scolding. Rory did not utter one single word to the Uncle through the entire process. Quite apart from his confusion (Rory had never heard of a _Found_ poster before), he just didn't want to speak to him.

Molly is still having trouble bringing the tears to a halt. On advice from Amelia (a veritable oracle on matters of emotional manipulation) she isn't really trying to anymore. She doesn't dry her eyes anymore, except to keep her cuffs damp and show she's been trying to dry her eyes, and she doesn't even sniff. She does _not_ turn her face away or hide when Uncle Sherlock walks into the room.

For her own part, Amelia has been working on the Really Scary Masks. The plot to attack the Moffiss has been somewhat on hold lately. The children have been a little busy. Between new girls at school and kittens and all the rest, they've hardly had time to breathe. But now she's right back to it. John got sent to that attic so that they could stick together, so that they could prepare for battle, and Amelia is going to honour that.

She applies painstaking layers of papier-mâché, using a trophy she found in the Uncle's study – which says he won first prize in the World Limbo Championships, 2005-2047 – as a mould. Three are made, and sit blank, propped against the walls in the corner where she has set up her workshop. The fourth is almost finished. While it dries, she stays in her corner. She stays cross-legged, unmoving, grim-faced, determinedly watching it dry.

Watching this from the kitchen, Uncle Sherlock has been put off his tea and sets it to one side. "Uncle," he murmurs, "I'm beginning to understand why the school keep calling us about her."

"…I know."

"It's the eyes. They just go dead. It's like looking into a light bulb and seeing only the burnt-out filament."

"She's got a lot of love to give-"

"-And can switch it off at will."

"-And she has her own way of expressing that. Sherlock, are you saying my ward is a potential psychopath? Because that's what I'm hearing."

"Certainly not."

"Good."

"The word 'potential' never came into it."

Amelia is oblivious. Even if she wasn't so deep in her reverie, even if she could hear them, she wouldn't respond. She wouldn't get up. She wouldn't give them the satisfaction. She'd just wait, as the clock ticks on, until the mask starts to crispy at the edges, and the centre stops looking wet. Then she eases it away from the mould and props it against the wall with the others. _Then_ she gets up. _Then_ she goes right over to them, into the kitchen. Making a point of turning her nose up at the uncles, she almost walks into the cupboard under the sink, pretends not to have noticed, and goes to the cutlery drawer. It has one of those little plastic locks on the inside to keep the children safe, but all she has to do is reach over the top and press the latch down. Then she feels around until the round plastic handles slip under her hand, brings out the scissors and goes back to her masks.

The uncles' eyes follow her as she draws two angry lines in marker where eyeholes need to go, and stabs them into the first blank face.

"…Sherlock, while she's doing that, go in and hide her paints. We can stall her if we can't stop her."

"You'll have to do your own subterfuge."

"Why? Where are you going?"

"Prisoner's rights; John still needs new school shoes. Best get it over with." The Uncle panics. He has wanted to be calm and collected about this. He's usually very good about that. When it comes to the children, that's what he aims for. If he's relaxed, they'll be relaxed. If he is strong, they'll know they're safe. But _now_ he panics, because Sherlock is _escaping_. He's leaving him here. Alone. With them. Sherlock sees all this cross his face (the whimpering, too, is something of a giveaway) and claps a hand to his shoulder. "Don't look at Molly and she can't hurt you. Don't pay Amelia any attention; that's what she wants. Rory needs help with his homework, but don't offer; he'll only resent you."

That's all the advice the Uncle gets, and Sherlock sweeps from the room suspiciously quickly after that.

From the corner workshop, sharp and bawling, "_Rory! _Come and try your mask on so I know if the eyes are right."

Half a minute passes. When Rory shuffles out of the bedroom, squinting from concentrating so long on his maths, he is carrying her paint box, markers and brushes. While he tries on the mask, he mutters from behind it, "They were talking about taking your paints away so you can't finish. You should just keep them on you."

"Thanks, Rory. Is Molly okay?"

"She's playing with Scrabble. I think she feels better." But he says this very quietly indeed; if the Uncle heard that, it would make _him_ feel better, and that's not what they want.

"Can you see out of this?"

They spend a few minutes evening Rory's vision, and discussing the troublesome maths. Under the pretence of going to his study, the Uncle takes advantage of the open bedroom door to look in on Molly. She is rolling on her back, as is Scrabble, wrestling at either end of the ragged blanket. Her eyes are red, puffed up like bullfrog cheeks, nose all but glowing, but at least she seems to be playing again. But Rory catches him spying, drops his Really Scary Mask back into Amelia's hands and rushes to Molly's defence. He stands angry in the doorway, glaring at the Uncle, before he flings the door shut, closing him out.

It's a long afternoon. The Uncle goes to his study (door _open_, thank you, keeping an eye, being available, sociable, ready to help with maths at any given moment) and stays away from it all. He counts in the hours, thinks about calling River, talks himself out of it, thinks about finding a war to end somewhere in the cosmos, talks himself out of it, taps a pencil sixteen-hundred consecutive times without once losing the rhythm, gets bored, taps his foot, waits for Sherlock to come back, waits for Sherlock, waits for Sherlock…

Sherlock, in fact, is on the way back. He's having a very good day. Buying shoes for grumpy, silent John has been much easier than the normal i-want-trainers-I-want-ones-with-lights-in-the-sol e-I'm-too-old-for-velcro-now shopping. It was a case of:

Pointing, "Those do?"

Sullen shrug.

To the shop girl. "Those please. Size one."

Uncle Sherlock is having a _fantastic_ day. He's got some ideas for the next back to school shop. Mostly they involve manipulating the children into doing naughty things, so he can get them into a state like this, and go about happily pointing at 'This?', do the whole thing in a couple of hours, buy the cartoon character backpacks off Amazon, have a cup of tea and back to work. He has only two problems. Firstly, the part of his brain that often takes on the viewpoint of a certain victim or witness declares, scandalized, _But that's entrapment_! This, he can combat easily – there is no such thing as entrapment under British law. The part of his brain that will forever belong to the Uncle, however, glowers disapprovingly and is much harder to ignore.

But he's got all summer to get around that.

They are not two streets from home when, back at the flat, the phone rings. For once, the children do not rush to gather round it, do not clamour to be the one who is allowed to answer. The Uncle almost doesn't realize it's ringing without that familiar cacophony, and it's four or five separate trills of the bell before he gets up and answers.

"Hello?" and he's wondering, who could it be, who would be calling on the weekend, because River calls the superphone, and it can't be the school and-

"Ask young Hooper to blow her nose, would you? It's turning into a frankly _disgusting_ watch. Post-watershed, very MTV gross-out humour. No, it won't do at all."

The Uncle freezes. "Who is this?"

"Please. Bring Molly a tissue first."

He weighs his options. Then, keeping good hold of the phone, paying careful attention to the sounds on the line, and to that voice, the Uncle grabs a couple of tissues from the box and goes hurriedly to the children's room. Rory tries to protest the invasion, but he is quiet quickly. Because when a guardian is upset or tense, it shows, and children respond to that. The Uncle kneels on the floor next to Molly, and cradles her against him. For the first time in a day and a half, she accepts when he brings a handful of soft handkerchief to her nose and blows hard. And when all's said and done and he's wiped all that away, she looks a lot better.

The voice on the phone concurs, "There. Much more BBC-friendly, don't you think?"

"Then it _is_ you," he mutters darkly, containing his rage while the children are in the same room. The Uncle leaves Molly and Rory in the safety of their confusion and turns. Amelia is still trying not to look interest, but she can't help herself. He goes out, picks her up under his arm and deposits her in the bedroom. Then he glares warningly from one pair of eyes to another, pointing, and shuts the door.

You might well imagine, given you know them a little by now, how the conversation goes in that room. Therefore, perhaps it's best to linger with the Uncle. After all, all the mysteries are with him.

The voice on the phone, purring with pleasure, "Yes, it's me. Found you, long last. Olly-olly-oxen-free."

"You stay away from those children. You come at me and Sherlock with whatever you've got, but you _stay away_ from those children."

"I like Amelia. Interesting balance, there. She'd make a wonderful Mummy-Bear sort of character, don't you think?"

"_They are not characters!_" he bursts, trembling with a hate he can no longer control.

"And Rory… what a good soldier. What a good, solid everyman. Oh yes. He could be pushed to the very _limits_ of human experience. Eight years old; what a perfect age to begin, to sow the seeds. Get something growing, hm? They have to grow, you know. It's called a development arc."

And the development arc of the children in the Uncles' care is going to involve growing up happy and untroubled and going to big school and then to uni and various professions, marrying, having children, growing old in the same lovely, sunshine cycle and the end will not be sad because the life will have been well-lived. They will make sure of that. How did this happen? Oh God, this phone-call, how on earth or any other planet could it ever have happened?

He goes out the front door and stands on the landing, holding the phone to his ear. Luckily he can hear Sherlock's key turning in the door. He watches, and the moment those other eyes meet his, they know something's wrong.

The voice on the phone has noticed something out of place too. "We're one down. Where's our future doctor? That's another one with a good strong heart in his chest, could take a bit of working-on."

John tries to storm on past on his way to the attic. Like Amelia, the Uncle scoops him up at the waist and carries him, protesting, to his proper place with the others. If the children were confused before, now they're afraid.

"Don't do that! Poor little souls are terrified. You've told them nothing. Trauma's supposed to be _my_ speciality."

"How can you see them?" the Uncle demands, grabbing Sherlock by the arm, dragging him into the flat. Rather than explain to him and give it all away, he picks one of Amelia's markers off the floor and writes on the window, _Gaffatt_. Sherlock immediately presses his ear to the back of the phone.

"Same way any god can see the hidden things; mysterious ways."

"I don't like riddles," Sherlock sighs, and then winces as he realizes what he's done. He has given the Moffiss the opportunity to laugh at him, in a small, cruel sort of way.

"Learn to," he echoes, and the voice glows with too much of his own cleverness and importance. "Yes, they do look much better together, the four of them. It'll be a real pity to split them up between the two of you."

The Uncle is determined, "You will not separate them."

"Oh, I will. And when they're in separate worlds, they won't even remember that they ever knew each other, and they'll never meet. Except for those vile fanfiction people, I'm sure they'll give it a go." The voice of the Gaffatt takes on a cheerful, mocking whine. "_John-x-Amy crossover El-Oh-El_! You should just _see_ what they can do with _you two_."

While the Moffiss gloats, Sherlock picks up another marker and adds, _He can see them?_

The Uncle nods, and Sherlock turns on his heel. He goes to the children's bedroom, and begins to gather charges like the back-to-school shop. Molly and Amelia up on each shoulder, then hooking Rory and John's hands to his elbows, and he takes them en masse out of the flat and up to the attic room. "I realize," he tells them, smoothing Molly's hair (and passing her another tissue from his own pocket), "that this room has been associated lately with punishment. I assure you, you've all done nothing wrong. It's just there's… There's a huge bumblebee in your bedroom, and we're going to get it out before it stings one of you. Stay here until I call, alright?"

"We can help," Rory tells him. He steps up, sticks out his chin and really means it. "Even the masks are nearly ready."

Waving a dismissive hand, Amelia adds, "Give me fifteen minutes, we're battle-ready."

It's too much. Something that reaches past anger and becomes almost sentimental stabs into Sherlock. Seething, through gritted teeth; "Really scary masks are hardly appropriate for chasing a bumblebee out of a window now, are they? No. Behave yourselves. Stop looking for an argument and just… " He flounders, until he sees the blanket bundle Molly manages to bring with her, "…play with Scrabble for a bit, hm?"

But meanwhile, the Uncle is hearing, "Oh, yes, I like this place. What's this? A grim, gloomy attic? What was that about punishments?"

"How!? How are you doing this?"

"I have eyes everywhere. According to Amelia's sketchbook, I have a line of them all down my spine."

"You can't just suddenly be watching them!"

"No. Not just suddenly. For a day or so now. I told you; I only felt the need to call because Molly was becoming so very off-putting to look at. I'm trying to work up her in-universe psychology and all I have is this snivelling, weak, girlish sort of a thing. It's going to take episode-upon-episode to give her any spine at all, never mind one with eyes all down it."

"Molly is an incredibly bright, sweet girl, with a strength all her own, and-"

"I'm sure she is," the Gaffatt smiles, "But I just can't see it. Never mind write it. I supposed I could do the one-sided love-interest. The pining torch-bearer. The fans will destroy her for me. All I have to do is keep her weak."

The Uncle meets Sherlock on the attic stairs, mouthing, _He can still see them_.

"Why did you hide them away from me, Doctor?" The Gaffatt is grinning. The Uncle can hear it, even as he shudders at his own former name. "You made them so much more _tempting_ when you hid them. You know what I can do to them. Why would you make it irresistible?"

That stops him. He hangs lost and drifting on the stair, face fallen, limp and defeated. By the time Sherlock takes the phone from him, the Moffiss has hung up. "Uncle? _Uncle_." But the Uncle just hangs there, swaying like seaweed underwater, utterly gone. With a quick glance over his shoulder to check the children aren't watching, Sherlock brings up his hand and quickly slaps the Uncle's cheek. "Look at me and tell me what he said."

Dreamy, but with effort, "Um… Eyes everywhere… watching for a couple of days… The attic, Sherlock. He could see the children's room and then he could see the attic. He'd been looking at Molly for a while and then… It means something, but I'm missing it."

Sherlock isn't. "Don't be dense, Uncle. You're millimetres from the deduction. Now get yourself together. I'm going to need you to distract them." He turns then, and goes directly back to the door he just left. Bursting in, "Molly; the kitten, if you please."

Molly, however, knows that this is a living creature, and that she has been put in charge of it. She picks Scrabble up from the centre of the teasing, tickling circle the children had fallen so easily into and cradles her, protectively. "Why?" she demands.

"I'm going to train her to hunt bees, so she can keep your children safe when summer comes and we have to leave the window open at night." This si fair. There's a murmur of agreement from the children; summer is always a problematic time. Everybody knows spiders are much more likely to creep inside when you're sleeping than when you're awake. Bumblebee hunting must be translatable to spiders, right?

Molly still isn't sure. Actually, if she didn't know better, if she wasn't so absolutely sure the Uncles would never, ever tell her any lies ever, she'd say Uncle Sherlock was telling a naughty fib right now. She'd say bumblebees have nothing to do with it. It's not even warm enough outside for there to be bees, in Molly's opinion. But the Uncles wouldn't lie. It's as simple as that. Molly's only seven and a half; she doesn't know when Bee Season is anyway.

And so she hands Scrabble over.

She doesn't hear what passes between the Uncles as Uncle Sherlock leaves. Neither do any of the other children. But he mutters softly to his compatriot; "And if said-kitten should happen to be fatally stung during training I'm counting on you to be less upset than the children."

He goes out and closes the door.

The Uncle tries to get over what he just heard. None the less, there is a moment of dazed and perfect silence, and all the children are staring up from his feet by the time he comes round. A distraction. He is being depended on for a distraction. Surely that's the least he can do for them, after everything he's brought down upon their young heads.

First, the incredible sadness is burning his eyes. He fights it down into a hot ball in his throat. This, he is able to swallow. There is only a tremulous trace left on his voice by the time he manages to say to them, "Well… What about a story, then, while we wait?"


	12. Chapter 12

The attic room is gloomy and close. The Uncle sits in the middle of the guest bed and gathers the children about him, two under each arm. Across their collective legs, he spreads the duvet John's been sleeping under during his incarceration up here. Molly in particular clings to his side, her damp face buried against his ribs. "Little star?" he coaxes, twirling her hair, "Are you alright?"

She's choked, and every word comes with its own deep wheezing inhalation. "I'm – Just – Really – Sca-ha-hared…"

He hugs her as tightly as he possibly can with his silly arms, which are really far too long for Molly, and could go round her a few more times only he doesn't have enough joints to do that, so he just has to make do with a super-tight squeeze. "Molly Hooper, of Baker Street, seven-and-a-half years of age, who is very good at mathematics and science, I am going to speak and you are going to listen. All of you are going to listen. Do not be afraid. There's nothing to be afraid of. You have me and your Uncle Sherlock to stand between you and all the scary things that there are. And there are no scary things in this attic. Is that understood? Molly?" She nods. He feels the movement against his shirt and lets her away with that.

"Amelia?"

Uncertain, mistrustful, "Understood…"

"Mr Watson?"

"Understood."

"And Mr Po-_ Williams_, Williams…?" Rory does not answer right away. With a personal invitation to answer and the three responses that went before to guide him, there's really no excuse for it. The Uncle waits, and waits, and waits much longer than he would usually wait for an answer he knows to be right and believes to be coming. "_Rory_? Something on your mind, hm?"

"Well," the boy begins. Then he sticks up his pudgy hands, showing them empty and incapable of harm and goes on, "_and-I'm-not-saying-in-this-attic-right-now_, because you wouldn't have made John stay up here if there was, but is it not true, like in stories, that monsters that can't live in cellars live in attics?"

The Uncle makes determined eye contact and nods repeatedly down at the cowering Molly. "Not in this one, eh?"

Rory, quickly, (clever boy) "No, no, definitely not in this one."

"And besides," the Uncle continues, and he continues with an archness of tone, with the suggestion of adventure and mischief and other irresistible dreams, "not all attic-or-basement monsters are nasty, you know."

"Nice monsters?" Amelia balks. Now she really doesn't believe him. She's willing to, though, if he can only prove it. She wriggles up and wraps both arms around his, hanging on him, looking up with bright, wondering eyes. "Like the B.F.G.?"

"He didn't live in an attic or a basement," John says.

The Uncle concurs. "No, he wouldn't fit. He'd be all-" And he does some wriggling of his own, crushing his limbs together at awkward angles into the tiniest possible space until the children are a giggling, rolling mass. Even Molly, who has refused to let go of him still and is caught somewhere in the knot of his arms and twisted neck, is brought to dim, trembling smiles again. "But, as an example of the friendly monster, yes, Amelia. Just like the B.F.G."

They're waiting now. Ready for it. They are so sweetly ready to listen to him, and to believe in him. There are no monsters in the attic. Of course there aren't, because the Uncle said so. And there are friendly monsters in the world, and isn't that a lovely thing for them to think? Now, should they ever meet any monster, they'll know there's a chance, just a little one, that it's not the nasty sort. If the Uncle knows this lot half as well as he thinks he does, they'll probably stop and outright ask if a given monster is a nice monster or a nasty monster.

They want a story. And he wants to tell one. Five minutes, just five minutes, surrounded by little smiles, talking about nothing of consequence and only bright things. Maybe then he can forget for a second or two that oh-so-recent phone call, and all the horrors he has learned of.

"Once upon a time," he begins, "though not very long ago and perhaps slightly in the future and probably happening right now except somewhere else, but not far away from here at all… In fact, just five minutes ago, in the attic of that nice Mr Fury's house across the street… Rory, put your tongue away. Don't make me force you to go and shake hands with that boy… Do you want a story or not?" They settle. Threaten to take the story away and all four of them settle at once. Molly gives a sharp, business-like sniff, and the others gather about him with crossed legs and panic-stricken eyes until he begins again, "Five minutes ago, in Mr Fury's attic, there was a friendly monster…"

Meanwhile, downstairs in the flat, the friendliest monster of all is being studied.

Scrabble has been blindfolded (her eyes being the most likely place for the Gaffatt to have hidden his cameras), with one of the Uncle's old pocket squares, and is pawing uncertainly around Uncle Sherlock's desk in confused darkness.

"I imagine you're still somehow listening," he says aloud in the empty room. "Only know that I have no reason whatsoever to allow this furry sleeper agent of yours to live, except that the children have grown rather attached and I'm not sure I could find a replacement with the appropriate markings by the end of storytime." He speaks with absolute calm. This, after all, is only a cat (or perhaps not, as he will come to discover). It is only an agent. The Moffiss itself is not here and it would be illogical to waste the energy it takes to be angry. He keeps telling himself that as he arranges various gadgets and technological widgets away from the exploratory paws.

The last of these is an old, perhaps slightly dated, field surgery kit. Someday, far in the future, he hopes to give it to John when he goes off to study medicine. Today, it will be taking on a somewhat more veterinary purpose.

"I also imagine, if you are listening and you heard what I just said, that you are laughing now. You're thinking how very quaint it is of me to give a damn about the sentimental attachments of a group of eight year olds to a stray, and all the more so in light of the stray's true identity. Well, sir, I'm all for that. You go ahead and laugh. Laugh now, because before long you won't have anything to laugh about."

He sits down, and satisfies himself that he has everything he needs. He has RF scanners and metal detectors and a miniature X-ray device that the people at Bart's keep saying he _stole_ (someday, Molly Hooper, someday, you're going to spare him all that hassle), and a few hasty-looking scraps of metal and exposed wires he's borrowed from the Tardis and isn't entirely sure what they do. It doesn't seem to matter what they do, if his observations of the Doctor are anything to go by. Point-and-hope, seems to be the instruction manual.

All of this, he has in readiness. He is _about_ to begin. Then he rethinks. He picks up the perplexed Scrabble, briefly removes her blindfold and looks her dead in the cameras. "Oh, and just a word of advice – save yourself some trouble and crawl back into whatever slimy little hovel you came out of, because you are not having those children." With a jerk, he tugs the blindfold back down, and goes to work.

The Uncle, while he would concur most heartily with all of these sentiments (including the one about unrecognized alien technologies) is blissfully unaware of them. Up in the attic, he is just hitting his stride.

"It was, as I said, a friendly monster. It was a girl, and her name was Jill. She was very small, about the height of this bed, with four soft paws and a long tail that had long spiny bits out of it. And she was covered with fine, silky fur and it was… What colour should her fur be?"

"Blue," John asserts.

"She's a _girl_ monster?" Amelia tells him, rolling her eyes.

"Girls can have blue hair. There's a girl at school with blue hair, but then it turned blonde again." Amelia argues with him, that hair doesn't just change colour. You have to go to the hairdressers and sit for hours, and they paint your hair, and then they put an oven on top of your head to bake it, like when they made stained glass out of hard-boiled sweets. "No, it's true. And then I saw her turning it pink behind the swings."

Rory has been waiting for his chance and when John stops talking he rushes to his aid, jumping in, "And she had two different colour eyes at lunch on Wednesday, and I told Ms McTaggart, and she told me off for making up stories, but she really did, it wasn't a lie, she actually did have different colour eyes."

The Uncle, feeling like he's losing control of his story, "Oi! Oi-oi-oi-oi-now, calm down, the lot of you. As fascinating as that story sounds, it can wait. We're in the middle of one here." And he must have a word with that teacher of theirs; nobody ought to be told off just for telling whimsical stories about shapeshifting eyes and hair… "Jill The Friendly Monster Who Lives In Mr Fury's Attic does indeed have silky, _blue_ fur. With some pink bits and two different colour eyes. How's that? All happy? Can I move on?"

Molly and Rory answer him happily. John and Amelia are still pulling faces at each other. He lets them.

"Of course, Jill's been living in that attic for a lot longer than those children across the street have been living in the house below. She'd been there on her own for a long time. She'd get up in the morning and eat breakfast… No arguments this time; Rory, what does she eat for breakfast in the attic?"

"…Old books."

"She'd eat an old book, and then put the radio on and have a dance. Molly, dearest, what sort of music does she like?"

Molly chews anxiously on the tip of her finger, thinking very hard. Suddenly bright as a bulb, she jumps up and down from her knees and declares, "The Monster Mash!", and when the other children giggle Molly glows shyly and forgets her former tears forever.

"Amelia, what else did she like to do with her day?"

"Um… she'd have a bath, only with her tongue and her paws, like Scrabble does."

"Right-o. And that was Jill's nice little life. Every day the same, with her favourite music and her bath and old books to eat. And Jill was very happy. Except she was all on her own. Now, she'd never had anybody else about, so she didn't know that's what she wanted, but she did. She was lonely without even knowing it. It made her very very sad and she didn't even know why."

John grumbles, "All the monsters in your stories are lonely and sad."

Yes, well… it is the prerogative of the storyteller to lend verity and realism to any given story by making reference to worlds and states of which he is already intimately aware. The Uncle is almost tempted to say this aloud, knowing that they won't understand half of the words, but then these children do have such powerful memories… He envisions them later on, four heads clustered over the dictionary, arguing over the spelling of 'prerogative'. There's an R in there that really shouldn't be and it'll flummox them. Therefore, to put off any upcoming arguments, and maybe just because saying it out loud would hurt, he lets the comment slide.

(It should, however, be noted that young Watson is on his last warning, after this and the altercation with Amelia. Amelia's on one strike, Rory's on thin ice. Molly, though, Molly's doing alright, bless her.)

"Then, one day, Jill was going about her usual daily routine. She was halfway through her bath, when there was a noise in the street. A big, rumbling noise. So she climbed a pile of breakfast books, and jumped off an old chair, and got on the windowsill to look down. And what do you think she saw? A moving van. And they brought out six little beds, and six little homework desks, and six little trunks of personal belongings, and they moved them into the house right beneath Jill's attic. Of all the nerve, eh, folks?! Jill was very nervous. Very _afraid_. What was moving in? What was going to live in the house beneath her attic? Yes, she was very scared indeed, and didn't finish her bath, but sat the top of the stairs, gnawing the end of her tail, which she did when she was scared."

Like Molly and her ponytail. She doesn't know she's doing it, but the Uncle can tell; her fear isn't all that far away.

"But why was the monster scared of the children, Uncle?" This from Amelia, redeeming herself for being so argumentative earlier.

He says, "Ah!" Which is a noise the children like. It means he's about to something fun, something bright and sparkly and really really clever. The children bristle as he gets up from between them, tangling the duvet and throwing it off over their heads. They giggle their way back out in time to see him standing under the single bulb that hangs from the ceiling. He hunches his shoulders, and claws up his hands, and pulls a stern face, as if this cheery story about friendly monsters may be about to turn into one about ghosts. Molly chews harder on her ponytail, and unconsciously grabs for Amelia's hand. She's not looking, though, to see that she finds Rory's instead. And Rory's not all that aware of how tightly he squeezes back.

The Uncle leans in, and the bulb cuts out his face in eerie shadows.

"Imagine, my dear children, if you _dare_, the terrifying monster I am about to describe to you. They are a race of, quite literally, billions. Aside from certain differences in colour, they are mostly alike. They have a doughy, fleshy appearance. Their two big eyes can move around without their face ever shifting. They talk incessantly, even when there's nothing important to say. They're designed completely wrong, with tiny feet supporting tall bodies, and just one paltry little heart trying to get blood all around their bodies. Oh, and their habits, my young ones… Such habits. They chew off their fingernails, some of them. They pluck one-by-one the painful hairs from their faces. They spend vast quantities of currency on tiny little stones they like because they're shiny and hard to get to. Sometimes they fight for no reason, and destroy themselves in vast swathes over nothing at all."

"Oh!" Molly gasps, and raises her hand like she's at school. "Oh, Uncle, Uncle, I know what they are! I know what they are!"

He winks, "I know you do, Doctor Hooper. Ten points for the clever girl."

Molly shines. Rory, meantime, is busy realizing that that hand just flew out of his to go into the air, and is hoping nobody else saw him holding hands with a soppy girl like Molly.

Molly, it has to be said, is doing very well this afternoon. Uncle Sherlock could do with some of her luck.

Suffice to say, his attempts to debug the children's cat are not going well. While he has been able to detect listening devices, cameras, recording equipment, he's also discovered that the creature is, in fact, ninety percent cat. So he can't get rid of it for fear of distressing his wards, but if he were to begin surgery to remove the offending devices, he's liable to leave Scrabble in a condition said-wards will find very distressing indeed.

"An interesting dilemma," he admits to the still-listening  
>Gaffatt. "You really do think this is going to work, don't you? No matter what I do, you win. Either Scrabble here is allowed to continue her subterfuge and your <em>researches<em> go on unhindered. Or I get rid of her, and you've driven a wedge between the children and I… Very clever. It won't work, though. I know you. I know your mind. You think in dichotomies, opposites, in sets of two. Those two options, you have considered. You believe them to be the only two options. And that's where you fall down, you simplistic, two-dimensional little toad. If I've learned one thing from the Uncle, and I've learned lots of bloody things from the Uncle, it's that there's always another way. 'Secret Option C', he calls it. Just a matter of finding it."

He sits back, arms folded, looking determinedly at Scrabble, content to wait until Secret Option C presents itself. Content. And content. And still content… and a whole ten seconds of contentment later, he grabs the cat up inside Molly's discarded blanket and heads for the attic.

"Uncle," he announces, bursting in. "Uncle, I-"

"_Shush!_" say four angry voices, and four angry heads turn towards him, and Molly, who already has one hand up, raises the other so she can ask a question of Sherlock instead.

Hovering between her and the Uncle, his natural affiliation to the children wins out. He nods at her and she says, "Can I have Scrabble back now?"

An easy question, an easy answer. "No, she's still in training." A more difficult question and he turns to the Uncle. "Can I borrow the sonic screwdriver?"

The children's heads whip round as one, waiting to see what the Uncle's reaction will be. The Uncle, for his part, only looks. He _had_ been frozen mid-mime, waiting for the other children to reach Molly's conclusion. He is _still_ frozen mid-mime, hands up, hooked over, except now his eyes are wide and blank, and everything is dead and silent in his mind. He slowly, ever so slowly, incrementally, like an iceberg, turns his head and brings this gaze to Sherlock.

After the longest pause, "I beg your pardon?"

Sherlock doesn't quail. He's been through too much. He likes to think of himself as a brave person. He does not quail for anybody. Nor tremble. _Maybe_ he shakes very very slightly. Maybe he has to clear his throat before he can repeat, "Can I borrow the sonic screwdriver… _please_?"

The children, who had looked to see if Uncle Sherlock might just beat a sensible retreat, look back to the Uncle now. He is just that little bit late in replying with, "Why?"

The children aren't quick enough to see Uncle Sherlock jerking his head at Scrabble, the look on his face very much one of exasperation and don't-be-dense. (Don't-be-dense, they decided long ago, is in fact an emotion. It's not the sort that teachers talk about when they point at the cartoons on the wall and say 'happy', 'sad', 'angry', but it's one they've seen enough at home to understand.) They turn, but only in time to see him straightening his face. Through gritted teeth, "For a _reason_, Uncle."

"Oh. Well. If there's a reason."

Begrudgingly, shuffling his feet, the Uncle starts to go to Uncle Sherlock. He looks only at the ground. His face is like the cartoon the teacher points at and says, 'Sulking'. Amelia leans over to John and mutters, "It's like when they made Rory shake Tony's hand after they got in that fight." They giggle and Molly (with that one hand that doesn't have to be in the air anymore) covers her mouth to smother a snigger. Rory doesn't laugh. The incident is still raw with him. He feels the Uncle's pain most acutely as he reaches into his jacket, removes the sonic screwdriver and holds it out. Rory understands why he doesn't _immediately_ let go when Uncle Sherlock tries to grab it away.

That's why it's Rory who tries to make things easier. He tries to distract them both. "Uncle Sherlock?"

"Mh?"

"Before you take Scrabble back down for more training, could you help us with the riddle, please?"

Molly, whose arm really is starting to get sore (and she opens and closes her hand to try and relieve it), groans, "But _I_ know! Ask me, I know."

Amelia elbows her in the ribs so her arm drops back down in defence. While Molly is curled up and nearly crying, she leans close and whispers that this isn't about the answer anymore, okay?

Rory explains, "The Uncle is telling us about a race of monsters. And he swears we already know who they are. They're fleshy, with two eyes, and they stand on their back limbs. They pay lots of money for shiny stones and sometimes the females get their heads baked. They keep all their old medicines in special boxes. They drink poison to make them feel happy even though it makes them sick the next morning."

Over their heads, Uncle Sherlock rolls his eyes smilingly. The Uncle shrugs at the old, old joke. That's the great thing about children; they haven't heard the old jokes yet.

"Mr Williams," Uncle Sherlock says, with thoroughly false distaste, "If you can't guess from those clues, I almost feel like I shouldn't help you at all. However, as you are very young, and I've got Molly there to keep up my faith in you all, I'll tell you what. You cannot deduce from the clues, then deduce from the man. The Uncle is talking to you about a race of strange creatures with bizarre habits which he doesn't fully understand. He is, however, speaking with love and excitement, so he likes this particular bunch-"

He has yet to finish saying that last word when Amelia rears up on her knees, arms flapping and cries with rapturous epiphany, "_Humans_! People, humans, he's talking about people."

Molly groans and falls over on her side, spent from her long anticipation.

Rory and John, in perfect unison, turn their amazed eyes up and sigh out, "_Oh_…"

And in the background of all this, the Uncle still has not quite let go of the sonic. While the children are thus distracted, he uses that grip to grab Sherlock close. He is about to hiss all sorts of warnings and threats when Sherlock mutters, "I just need it to reprogram Pussy Galore here. I'll bring it straight back."

The giggling and clapping from the children forces them to part, and there is only the warning in the Uncle's eyes to chase the victorious, helpful Sherlock from the room.

"But I still don't really understand," Rory says. He does, but he's just trying to help the Uncle. He'll get back into the swing of things and forget that the screwdriver is even gone, with any luck. "Why would Jill The Friendly Monster Who Lives In Mr Fury's Attic be scared of the children over there?"

"But that's what I just explained. Jill doesn't think she's a monster. Jill is just… _Jill_. And when the Children appeared she was very frightened of them, because she'd never seen Children before. All she knew was that they weren't Jills. Nobody thinks of themselves as the monster. Do you understand that?"

An idea strikes Molly. It's a slightly scary idea. She doesn't want to scare everybody else by talking about it out loud. She gets up from where she had fallen, giving up her corner of the duvet. She walks up to the Uncle and tugs on the hem of his jacket until he leans down to her. And she whispers her awful idea into his ear. The Uncle draws back just enough to look her in the eye, to appreciate the compassion of her, the tremble of her protruding lower lip.

What she just said to him is difficult to process. On the one hand, he wants to reject it entirely. He wants to make it ridiculous to her, to quash it and burn it away and scatter the ashes. That would comfort her. That would be the best thing to do. But on the other hand, she just said something he'd never considered himself before. And it makes sense. It's exactly the point he was making, taken to its logical conclusion.

He picks her up and holds her in the crook of his arm. "You know," he tells her privately, "you might be right. I suspect that, to _somebody_ out there, that particular monster is not a monster at all. You know I hear tell he has a wife. The difference between him and Jill, however, will become apparent, when I continue with the story. I intend to prove to you that Jill is friendly, and thoroughly lovely. And that other monster you just mentioned, little Hooper, most decidedly is not."


	13. Chapter 13

Molly puts her plastic stethoscope back with the rest of her plastic kit, curling it carefully back into its clips. She closes up the case, takes a deep, deep breath and lets it go slowly.

"_Well_?!" John breaks. Amelia rolls her eyes; boys always give in to suspense.

Molly knits her hands and sits up on the edge of the bed. Because she still hasn't spoken, the other children know it can't be good news. They gather, and Rory stoops to the floor. After all, he's the bravest of him. After all, he's the one who wants to be a soldier, and he's going to have to get used to pain and wounds. He, then, is the best qualified, and the most willing to try, to pick up Scrabble from the floor. She swipes at him, scratches, and goes straight back to her nap as he retreats.

"Molly," he moans, as she takes his wounded hand and strips the last of the little cartoon plasters from its paper, "you said you could help."

"I said I'd try and figure out what's wrong with her." Bandaging his scratches is not the easy matter it ought to be. They opened a fresh box of plasters just a few hours ago and Molly, who has had the most contact with their suddenly violent pet, has thickened her fingers beyond reasonable use. Therefore, she's concentrating, and speaks with her tongue protruding from between her teeth. "And it's not easy. There doesn't seem to be anything wrong with her. But…" And they all put in their hands, where dozens of brightly coloured cats and dogs dance up from their dressings. Scrabble's physical might be saying she's fine, but there's a problem somewhere.

For the past day or so, Scrabble won't allow herself to be held or handled. She doesn't want to play. She doesn't come for din-dins when she's called, but lets the food lie in the bowl and goes when she's good and ready, nibbles and wanders away again. And she scratches. Scrabble, who has been so peaceable since Molly first brought her in from the doorway, _scratches_.

"It's ever since Uncle Sherlock taught her to hunt bees…" Amelia murmurs.

Rory gasps and dives to the pile of books by the bed, rubbing his hands along the spines while he looks for the one he needs. "I read a book, about a soldier-"

"_Never_!"

"Shut up, John."

Molly keens; they're turning on each other. She knew this would happen. It'll drive them apart and-

"-it was about a soldier, and he was in an explosion. It was really bad, and afterward, he was still scared and angry but he didn't tell anybody-"

John again, "Does the Uncle know you read this one?"

"-And it made him do all the things that Scrabble is doing. And it was called post-something-something-disorder."

Amelia stares at him as he flips through the tattered paperback. "That's it? That's all you know? Post-something-something? That's it. We'll have to look it up. John, go and get the laptop." The other three flinch, and cry out as one. "We have no choice. It's for Scrabble."

Molly, with her hands over her ears, tries to explain. "Last time we had no choice because it was the Gaffatt. I'm not sure you really know what 'no choice' is, Amelia."

They're all such wimpy little scaredy-cats. If they're not going to help her, Amelia will go and get it herself. It's perfectly safe. Uncle Sherlock went out ages ago. And the Uncle must be in the Tardis, because she can hear shouting and clanking from his room. She's just going to walk right over there, lift the laptop off the desk, and carry it back to their room. She could sit right in the office and use it, if she wanted to. But Amelia wants Scrabble to see them working to help her. They'll find out what she's got and how to cure it and Scrabble will know every step of the way, they're not just going to let her lie there sleeping and scratching forever. They'll fix her.

The others can do nothing but look on as she gets up, determinedly stomping to prove no one is even listening. Her only concession to safety is to go to the door of the Uncle's lab and make sure he's still in there.

Within, the superphone rings, and the Uncle cries out. _Must be Aunty River_, she thinks to herself, and goes back to her little larceny.

It is not, however, Aunty River on the phone. It hasn't been Aunty River on the phone the _other_ twelve times it's rung today. And, as he breaks out a map of London and counts all the little points along a certain route, it won't be Aunty River the next eight times either. _That's_ why he shouted before he answered it.

"Sherlock, as fascinating as I'm sure this tour of local phone boxes is, _get on with it_!"

"I agree. Wholeheartedly. Absolutely. But really, Uncle, this can't be entirely necessary, can it?"

So, for the thirteenth time running, the Uncle tells him a story. Not much different to telling the children one. On a comparative timeline, Sherlock is a toddler to him. And every so often, he demands to be handled like one. "Once upon a time, you so-called genius-"

"_So-called_?!"

"- there were four very bright, very wise, very important children. They lived happily together and went to school and did their homework and played with their friends. But a dark and evil monster was looking for them-"

"Yes, very funny, you can stop now."

"-And it found out where they lived. Now, it hasn't attacked yet, but that's not necessarily a good thing, because it only makes you wonder why. Luckily for them, they had two guardians, who would have done anything, _including swallowing their own precious pride, Mr Holmes_, to protect them."

And then the Uncle waits. Every other phone call today, his story has been met with some excuse. Couldn't he call River instead? Wasn't there anybody else in all his vast experience? Shouldn't they move the children further away? Would it be better to hide them in a different era? And, every so often, a simple plea, "Don't make me do this. I hate asking him for anything. He'll have that smile on his face, like it's some sort of victory."

"And you will take it and you will smile right back and you will be nice to him, Sherlock."

There's a pause on the other end of the line, and Uncle Sherlock makes a noise not unworthy of one of the children. The no-homework noise. When they don't want to go to school and get into trouble, when they decide at the door they have a dodgy stomach and must stay home, maybe it's something to do with the jellied eels the Uncle puts on the cereal? They should go back to bed and watch CITV today, yes… Then, bitterly, already accepting defeat, "You know he blames _you_. For just about everything."

If only it were that simple. If only it had been the Uncle who led that dark and evil monster to its favourite detective, there would be someone to blame. There would be a place for the hate and the anger to rest and focus. But the Moffiss had its claws in Sherlock before the Uncle ever met him. He can only wish it otherwise.

"Let him," the Uncle says.

Sherlock hangs up, and starts again along his way.

And all of this has given Amelia time to complete her task. They are, once again, gathered on the floor (with the laptop forming a wary barrier between them and the affected cat), googling Post-Something-Something-Disorder, Rory still trying to fill in the blanks. Sadly, they're getting nowhere, and Molly is starting to suspect that the condition won't be something she can treat with things from the bathroom cabinet anyway. It's all very sad, and very dispiriting. Scary. Maybe that's why they all jump when Scrabble suddenly lifts her head. Her ears twitch as if she can hear something they can't. She can sense something that makes her climb up from her nap, head low and hackles high. She goes immediately to the door of the room and scratches at the wood.

Which makes a change, certainly, from scratching at the children, but they don't like this much either.

"What's out there?" Molly mumbles, grabbing for the blanket Scrabble was sleeping in.

"Probably nothing," Rory tells her, patting her shoulder with a slightly clammy hand, "Maybe she's having a memory about the bee she killed. She thinks it's coming for her."

"Maybe it's the Uncle," John says, with a rueful terror they're not used to hearing from him. "Looking for the laptop. I'll definitely get sent to the orphanage this time."

But then there's a knock. No. No, there's a _pounding_. Someone, or something, bangs on the side of the door with a fist. The Uncle knocks, but politely, with his knuckles, and he usually just opens the door anyway as he does it. But who else, after all, could it be? Rory is on his feet, halfway to the door when Amelia grabs the back of his t-shirt. She shouts past him, "Who's there?"

Scrabble is hissing, eyes fixed furious on whatever's out there. If it has ankles, whatever it is, she would very much like to sink her teeth into them. "Here?" comes a voice. Not a voice they recognize. It is both booming and oozing, both round and sharp, growling and soft, all at once. And the voice is smiling, like they're having a good joke together. Amelia points at the homework desks, and the chairs. The boys know what to do, and go immediately about stacking them quietly against the door to jam the handle. All four on top of each other can just about reach. "Who's _here_?" the voice continues. "Why, nobody. Why do you ask?"

Amelia, who knows she must distract this stranger as long as possible, decides to play along. She tips up her chin and will not cry, shall not cry, and most importantly _does not_ cry. She thinks of the Uncle, and how proud he is when she's brave. She thinks of Uncle Sherlock, who is never proud, simply because he expects her to be brave anyway. "Because you're talking, so you can't be nobody."

"What about The Man Who Wasn't There?" the Voice goads. "Do you know that one? You're Little Amy, aren't you? Do you know that one, Amy?"

"My name's Amelia."

"Oh," and the voice chuckles. "Oh, but of _course_. How silly of me. Amelia, then, my dearest Amelia, do you know the one about The Man Who Wasn't There?"

John and Rory are working to put the fourth and last chair into place. The stack, however, is as tall as they are, and they can't manage it, even with the chair held by the legs over their heads. Molly is bringing the encyclopaedias for them to stand on, but they're heavy and she's small. Amelia bites her lip and thinks very, very hard to remember.

"As I was walking down the stair…" That's the first line. The Voice beyond the door whispers, 'yes' and 'mmhm' and 'that's right'. "I met a man who wasn't there."

"Oh, Amelia," it purrs at her. Scrabble, weaving around chair legs, cries and swipes so hard at the door that she bounces from it, and lands mewling on her back. "Sweet Amelia, what a pretty voice you have. It's very distinct. People will hear that voice and think, _Ah, well that's Amy, and she is distinct, and black-and-white. I understand. That's Amy_."

"My name-" she bites.

"Is Amelia. Of course. Do forgive me. And please, continue with your recital. We were halfway there."

She doesn't want to. She wishes Molly would hurry up with the encyclopaedias so the boys could hurry up with the chairs. Amelia just doesn't think she should go on. Something about talking to this voice feels wrong. Not like stranger-danger, not like you-should-never-talk-to-strange-voices-beyond-doo rs (the Uncle said that) but worse than all of that. She feels like the more she says, the more the Voice likes it. She feels like something is going away from her.

Before she continues, she reaches beneath her bunk and removes the first of the really scary masks to be completed. It has blue lines on a yellow background, green beads and pink feathers. She holds it in front of her face before she says, "He wasn't there again today."

There is just one more line. The Voice knows that. It is coaxing and encouraging her. But Molly has just put another volume at John's feet to make him the same height as Rory, and the chair pushes snugly up beneath the door handle. Amelia forgets all about her recital and cries out, "_Uncle_!" at the top of her little lungs.

But the Uncle is the Tardis, in the Lab, and is beyond too many doors to hear her if he isn't listening out. He's waiting for the phone to ring again, unaware that after call #13, Uncle Sherlock took his advice to 'get on with it' and grabbed a cab the rest of the way. He's listening for the phone, not for Amelia screaming. Why should she scream? The Children are having a nice afternoon of Guess The Ailment, aren't they? Ever since Sherlock used his screwdriver to remove the Gaffatt's influence from Scrabble, she's been behaving like… Well, like a cat. No longer like a sweet, dream-like version of a cat, which is placid and affectionate at all times. Naturally, they're confused. They're just working through that, aren't they?

No, he's not listening to Amelia yelling, or to the owner of the Voice trying the door handle, and trying harder when it finds itself locked out.

What he does feel, however, is a little tickle at the back of his head, as though someone was tugging on the short hairs at the nape of his neck. First he shudders, and scratches. And then, when it doesn't go away, he remembers that this sensation means he has a message. Not on the phone or the Tardis mainframe, but on the psychic paper. That's always a bit of fun, always leads him on to something interesting, doesn't it? He's really quite excited when he fishes it from his inside pocket.

The message, however, is not fun, interesting, or exciting.

It says, cryptic and yet unequivocal, _I really wish he'd go away_.

For the first time today, the Uncle is the one who lifts the phone. "I'm going," is what he gets instead of hello. "I'm in a cab, I'm going, alright?"

"Sherlock, come back."

"…I beg your pardon?"

"Don't bother asking him, we'll surprise him." Stretching the phone cord to its length, he leans out of the Tardis, and edges the lab door open. He can't quite see all the way to the Children's door, but he can see that there's something in front of it, struggling hard now with the handle, trying to force it, and now he can hear Amelia crying for him. "We're out of time, Sherlock," he whispers. "Come back now."

"Is it?"

"It's here," he mutters, cursing himself for getting so wrapped up, for not paying more attention. "It's in the flat."

He just lets go of the receiver, dropping it. Then steps out to face, head on, right there in his own home, the wicked, two-headed Moffiss.

Holding the sonic out in his defence, he tries to be firm at first, "Leave."

The Gaffatt notices for the first time that he's there, and slowly, unctuously turns dragging behind it a gelatinous tail that gives off smoky shadow like fumes. Its heads smile in perfect synchronicity, the faces distinct but too similar to call it, and both pairs of lips move as once. "I heard John's voice," it says, with a tone of rapture. The television wobbling in its oozy chest gutters pictures of children playing, and then of empty playgrounds, of swings rattling as though the riders had been flung off into the sky and never come down. "I heard him and he was angry. It was…" And here it pauses, dragging pointed, warbling fingertips across both mouths, "_delectable_."

"You've developed," the Uncle tells it, stalling, "since we last met."

The Gaffatt ignores him. "And Amelia. I have had _poetry_ from Amelia. Molly is crying, Doctor. Perhaps you should have them open the door, that you might go in and comfort them."

_Yes, perhaps I should have them open the door, if Molly is crying, after all, I cannot listen to a child cry, it will be an awful day when I allow a child to cry, I will resign my name upon that day, I should have them open the door-_

But he catches himself. The Moffiss might have his mind, but his heart rages against it, and he roars instead, "Children, stay where you are! Don't let it in."

The malformed faces of the Gaffatt laugh, "Spoilsport." Then its four eyes follow the Uncle as he crosses the room to the cupboard near the kitchen. "What are you doing?" it asks, with derision, with just a hint of fortifying fear, when he removes the ironing board, opens out the squeaky legs and sets it up. Takes the iron down from its cradle and plugs it in. Stands idly waiting for it to heat up, humming a jaunty tune he heard on the radio this morning. "No," the Moffiss hisses. "What are you doing?"

As casually as he possibly can, as though it were the most elementary thing in the world, "School uniforms. Don't iron themselves, y'know."

The Gaffatt cannot stand this. The mundanity, the everyday nature of the act, these are not things which fit into its worldview. There is no action here, no emotion. There isn't even any comic purpose to the Uncle's housework. It holds its heads, tossing as though in great agony. "It's not true!" it cries in denial. "No, it's not true, they're in the wardrobe! They're clean and pressed, they're always clean and pressed."

The Uncle, laughing, drags the ironing basket, full of crumples shirts and blouses and skirts that need the pleats ironed back into them, says, "Don't I wish…"

His hands are trembling, and he's sick to his stomach, but it seems to be working. He whistles, and accidentally catches his cuff in the water when he's filling the measuring cup for the steam in the iron and mutters about it. He says such boring, meaningless things as 'Isn't that always the way?' and 'Sod's law' and 'Nothing worse, is there?' With each of these the Moffiss quails, moaning as though stabbed each time.

Thinking hard, the Uncle reaches for the single blandest thing he knows how to say. "Honestly… I'll know sooner have this done than they'll have them dirty again…"

"No," the creature groans. It sinks to its knees. "Doctor, this isn't you. Please. Please. Don't. Don't say it. You're better than this. You don't even sleep."

Momentarily breaking his boring new character he mutters, "Yeah, thanks for that." From this defiance, the Gaffatt finds some scrap of strength, starting to lift its aching heads again. The Uncle clears his throat and looks back down at John's trousers. Pinches the front of them, lets it go, pinches, lets go… "Crease, no crease, crease…? I never know… Not that they notice. Honestly-"

"Don't say it," the Moffiss breathes desperately.

"_I don't know why I bother._"

It screams, and vanishes into the shadows of its own tail. Too bored to remain in this realm, it will console itself in a place of exhilaration and delight. It will regain strength. No doubt, later on, the Uncle will pay for being so very disappointing. If Earth itself isn't invaded again, he'll count himself very lucky indeed.

But for now? For now it's gone, and that's all he needs to know.

He rushes to the door of the Children's room, calling ahead so that they will have unblocked the door, so that he can fall through it and grab them all into his arms at once. "I'm sorry," he murmurs. "I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. It's alright, it's gone now. It can't hurt you now. You've all been so brave. I'm very proud."

Rory extracts himself from the hug and sits down on the floor, picking at the feathers on Amelia's abandoned mask. "That was the Gaffatt, wasn't it?"

What does he say now? What does he tell them?

Sherlock has arrives, just too late. The Uncle hears him running up the stairs, three at a time. Letting himself in. Maybe he sees the ironing board and all the open doors and is, for a moment, confused. Then he joins Scrabble.

The cat has found two black, smouldering footprints in the carpet outside the children's door. Rounder and thicker than human ones, with the pads of four toes, that have shed long wiry hairs where it stood. She is pawing and sniffing. Sherlock crouches, and needs no such investigation. He knows what it means, and sees the sweeping mark of a tail the creature didn't have before. He looks up into the room, the inconsolable children, the Uncle looking lost.

"Oi," he barks, grabbing attention. Standing up, he tries to be strong for all of them. "Cheer those faces up, and start packing. We're going on a little holiday."


	14. Chapter 14

The Children are packing. Not just their sleepover bags either, but their suitcases, like when they went to the seaside last summer. Uncle Sherlock went and fetched them from the attic, and now they've been left to fill them up. In their room there is near silence, except for the rustle of clothes and, very occasionally, Molly sniffling.

"Okay," Amelia says. Her voice is a snap in the silence. John flinches. Rory snaps round instinctively, and she sees with infinite pity and sympathy that he has one of their home-made weapons, a short ruler gaffer-taped full of unfurled paperclips, tucked into his cuff. "Okay, here's what we're going to do. All of us. I'm going to say the first line of a new story, and it has to finish with 'And then'. Remember like we did in school with Miss McTaggart? And then John, and then Rory, and then you, Molly, okay?"

Molly is the only one who hasn't turned to look at her. She is on the other side of the bed, pressing her teddy-bear slippers into the side of her case. She sniffs loudly, nods, but she doesn't lift her head.

Amelia watches her carefully. "Once upon a time, there were four children in a room with a monster outside, and they were really cool, and they made it go away without ever even opening the door _and then_ – John?"

John stops emptying his sock bag into the case and thinks carefully. "And then their uncles let them pack their own cases, because they were going to go on an amazing trip as a reward for being so cool, _and then_ –" Rory is kneeling next to his stack of books, knowing he can only bring so many of them along. "_And then_, Rory."

"Oh? What? What are we doing? And then? And then there was a big battle and he was wounded and-"

Amelia picks up the medal she got for her art at school and flings it at him. "You're not listening!"

"I have to pick my favourite Cherub books! It's a big decision!"

She sighs and hangs her head. They never even got to Molly. Molly is still standing over her case, and as Amelia watches she sees a big glittering tear drop onto her favourite pink nightdress. "Right. Rory, John, shut up. Boys are stupid."

John looks round, open-mouthed. "What did _I_ do wrong?"

"Yours was boring. Me and Molly are going to play. Aren't we, Molly?" Another deep, but silent nod. "Okay. Once upon a time, there were four really cool children and a grumpy cat _and then_…"

"And then…" Molly murmurs. "And then… And then a terrible thing happened at the house they lived in, and they had to leave and then…"

No. That's not what Amelia wanted. She'll only make herself cry more, talking like that. So Amelia summons up a bright grin, and leans forward with her hands on the bed, "And then there was a knight," she cries with delight, "but not a normal knight, an alien knight, and not riding a horse, but riding a giant weasel with purple hair from another planet, and then-!" Molly is giggling through her tears, covering her mouth. "And then, Molly Hooper! Make it good!"

"And then his friends arrived!" Molly laughs, "and they were a cowboy-astronaut with his hat on inside his helmet, and a beautiful geisha girl who was also a glamorous thief and then-!"

Giggling, they elaborate the tale of the three intergalactic friends (who are quickly joined by a soldier who has been lost in his escape pod near Andromeda for many years as the boys worm their way back in) in an epic battle, a Shakespearean tapestry of good versus evil, against their great and monstrous enemy King Gatmoff.

And if you were listening, and if you were smart, that name will tell you all you need to know about just how safe they can really make themselves feel.

The Uncles, meanwhile, are just happy to hear their tentative laughter. It gives them just a little of respite. It lifts up their guilt at having left them alone, albeit with the door open, and just across the living room. They have something of their own to discuss, no more important but more urgent.

Sherlock, like the Children, is packing a bag. It is not a difficult nor taxing task. It's taking him a lot longer than it ought to, however, because the Uncle is behind him, pacing a track into the carpet, gnawing his fingernails. "_What_ is the matter with you?" he snaps in the end.

With moaning noises and fluid, tossing movements, the Uncle vacillates. Then, finally, "Let's not and say we did. Maybe I _could_ ask River, at a push. I mean, they all have families; we could send them to visit for a week."

"You're not serious? You were the one sending me to talk to him, were you not? And now that there's nothing to talk about and we just have to go ahead, _now_ you're talking about alternatives?"

"I know. Sorry. Changed my mind."

"Why!?"

Fully aware of sounding like a moaning companion, the Uncle arranges his thoughts and mumbles darkly, "Because he's terrifying. And he hates me." Here is where the Uncle, faced with a moaning companion, would try to be comforting. He would say that nothing is inherently terrifying. There is a home for every monster and a reason for every crime. And he would say that hate is a strong word, that most people don't really hate other people as much as they think they do, that 'hate' is just another way of saying 'I should get to know you better'.

Sherlock looks round at him and says, "So?"

The Children need to be safe. Not only that, but they need to be together and they need to be _protected_. Sending them home isn't going to work. All timelines considered, River won't be able to help him, and there's no one else he trusts enough to even contemplate. No, Sherlock's got it on the nose there. This is their only recourse. Whatever the Uncle feels about it, none of that matters. "…Yes, you're quite right."

Sherlock stands back from his packing. It's not like the Uncle to waver. The way he stands, the furrow of his brow, his indecision, all of it points to nervousness. There is something else on his mind. It is heavier and more important, and the effects on them will be deeper. He knows it as exactly as with telepathy. "Uncle?"

"What?"

"It came here. It stood in our flat, outside that door. Except that the children had the intelligence to barricade it, who knows what would have happened. Don't you think it's time you and I thought about-?"

"Later. Well talk later. First we're going to get away."

Conceding with a nod, Sherlock adds, "Not much later."

The Uncle hovers a moment longer in the doorway, shifting foot to foot. Then, "I'll just go and check on the little ones."

It's a very edifying thing to do. Their laughter has grown raucous in the interim. The boys are once again a fully integrated part of the whole. He sits near the door, holding Amelia's ragdoll in his lap. Almost immediately, he is accosted, Molly flinging herself at him and demanding to know, "What's a really good name for a mysterious geisha girl, Uncle?"

"Misikawa. Where have we gotten to? When I was last listening in Miss Adder from Uncle Sherlock's stories was making a guest appearance."

"Oh, no, she had to go," Rory calls over his shoulder (still at his books). "The Terribly Clever Brown Mouse had a case on and she went to help, but she did help the geisha thief get the magic amulet to wake up the comatose soldier."

"And what's his name?"

"Kevin," John informs him. "The cowboy is Weston and the alien knight… Well, he had to go too."

"His people are at war," Molly says, almost casually.

The Uncle nods sagely, "He had to go and help. Well, don't let me get in your way. Carry on."

"We can pick it up later," Amelia says.

It's at that he realizes that, at some time since he sat down, they have crowded around him. With Molly on his lap, with a boy hanging on either arm, he is effectively trapped. Amelia is the only one still keeping her distance. She is sitting on the end of the bed, smiling like an oracle, soft and untouchable. Not that he's scared of the Children. That would be ridiculous. How could he ever be scared of those quiet, polite, lovely little things, that are all around him, that are stronger in numbers, that are sort of staring at him…? "Heavens, boys and girls, you're looking very…" He shies from the word 'predatory', but then wolf cubs, when they play at hunting, hunt in packs.

"Where are we going?" Amelia asks, so very sweetly

Ah, then he is to be interrogated. Well, they can come at him. He's ready for them. He hasn't gotten this far through his life without being able to keep his secrets from those that would pry them loose. No, Children of the Flat, bring it on, he thinks to himself, _bring – it – on_…

But at that moment, the lights go out. His captors change their attitudes and cling to him, Amelia climbing over the others to curl up under his arm.

"_Sherlock_?"

Footsteps rush to the living room window. "Looks like the whole street. Nothing to worry about," but Sherlock's voice shakes just a touch.

A power cut. A power cut can happen at any time. But the timing, tonight, is just _too_ perfect. Too _meaningful_. It makes the Uncles remember whose world they came from. In that world, nothing is random. Everything must feed into the greater goal, like tributaries to a river. Under the auspices of the Gaffatt, nothing _just happens_.

"Children," the Uncle instructs, "if you possibly can, feel your way to your cases. We'll be leaving now."

He stands, and can barely keep himself from crying out when a hand grabs his shoulder from behind, but it's only Sherlock. Hissing in his ear, "How did you make it go away? What did you do to it?"

"The ironing."

"_Damn_ it, Uncle." Down in the dark, a chorus of tiny gasps to the very idea of Uncle Sherlock swearing. The Uncles realize their mistake and draw each other out into the living room before he goes on, "You _bored_ it? We tried that. You know how it gets."

This is one thing Sherlock feels very strongly about. He worked very hard at being boring, when he was a younger man. He drove himself half to madness with trying to be boring. And when the Moffiss looked upon his efforts it laughed.

The Moffiss, to teach him a lesson, drove him to much worse things than madness. And then, to show the true scope of its powers, it took all that pain and sickness it had inflicted and refused to acknowledge it. It told its' stories of Sherlock, yes, but in those stories there are only hints, mere whispers, of what he has suffered. No one yet knows the truth. No one knows anything and it's as if it never happened.

"You were meant for more," it told him, when they first met face to face. "There are creatures born to Normal Life, and then there are creatures like you."

"You can't be boring," he tells the Uncle, holding far too tightly to far too large a handful of tweed lapel. "You can't be _boring_, it gets humiliated! Do you know what it will do when it's humiliated?"

"You are overreacting," the Uncle tells him. Extracts his jacket from that corpse-like grip. "It's only just gone away. There's no way it could have regained enough of itself to attack again."

"And you did _nothing_ to lend it strength?"

"Nothing, Sherlock," and the Uncle puts a comforting hand out to his shoulder. "Nothing even remotely of interest. I was dull as dishwater."

"…Did the Children do anything?"

The Uncle stops.

_I heard John's voice_, the Gaffatt said to him. _And I have had poetry from Amelia_.

From the front door downstairs, there comes a pounding, as though tree trunks were being flung against it. There are no words, no reasons. There is no humanity. Only a scream, like the street outside was being torn in two and the insides of the Earth herself were crying out in pain, a noise that echoes to the sky and to the very limits of what was, until so recently, their safe haven.

And a sound which is even worse; the Children are screaming too.

The Uncles grab two pudgy hands each and pull them to the lab.

In the hall below, splinters are flung from the door and rattle on the stairs, and enormous vicious teeth grind gearlike and screeching.

The Children one by one are counted into the Tardis. Uncle Sherlock gathers them to him while the Uncle prepares for launch.

The Tardis has always been a treat. It's only for birthdays and Christmas and very special occasions. The seat of bright and happy memories, it pains the Uncles to see them now. They don't even know where they are. They're scattered on the stairs, each a separate little ball of fear and anguish. Molly rocks, clinging to Scrabble like a mother to her child. Amelia has her arms folded and her head down, refusing to even look at the world. John has his arms wrapped around the railing and Rory, for his part, is simply staring.

Uncle Sherlock sits amongst them, and could take this hand or stroke that hair, but cannot comfort all of them at once. At any rate, what would he say to them?

Far away, beyond two sets of walls, he hears the front door come in and rampaging feet storm up the stairs. But with a bump and rumble they're out of that place and into the relative safety of the vortex. The Uncle sighs heavily away from the console and comes to them.

"Oi," he murmurs, nudging Sherlock. "We should start our own 'And Then'."

It's not hard to see where he's going with this. "What would ours be about?"

"Well, we could pick up with what happened to Miss Adder after she left the adventurers."

"Miss Adder was fighting King Gatmoff?"

"No, but she helped Misikora-"

Out of her folded arms, Amelia corrects, "Misikawa."

"Quite right," the Uncle says, with the edge of a sly smile, "Beg your pardon. Miss Adder helped Misikawa to steal the magical amulet to wake up Weston-"

John reels round, "It was _Kevin_."

"Alright, alright, keep your trousers on. To wake up _Kevin_ out of his coma, which he was in because he was drifting in his escape pod around the Kors'tak Nebula-"

This time he has to stop for a minute. He has to wait for Rory to snap out of his stupor so he can say. "Andromeda. He was drifting around Andromeda."

Uncle Sherlock makes a show of clucking his tongue, rolling his eyes. "Calm down," he grumbles theatrically. "After all, it's only a story."

A tiny, powerless fist reaches out and thumps his knee. And Sherlock, along with everybody else, is utterly shocked to find that it belongs to Molly. The offending hand returns to its mistress and uncurls, fingers stroking the spot between Scrabble's ears. Quite calmly, with absolute control she informs him, "It's _our_ story."

Before the Uncles can relax entirely, the Tardis rattles. Her work is done, and the Uncle jumps his feet to go and land her.

Another bump, another rumble. "Then we're here," Uncle Sherlock says. He tries to keep a smile on his face. They need that, and he's not sure the Uncle is going to help him. The Uncle, currently, has both hands in his trouser pockets and is shuffling his feet as though the head teacher is about to shout at him, and will not lift his eyes from the floor. "Ignore him," Sherlock tells the Children, manually turning each of the four little heads to face the door. "Big adventure, right outside. Your Uncle is just… deciding whether or not to have new flooring put in, I promise." He sweeps them forward. In the interests of involving them, "John, get the door, if you would."

It's a bit of a stretch for him, but Rory helps pull it open, and Sherlock can wait.

What is gradually revealed outside is ten or fifteen feet of lawn with a gravel drive, at the end of which stands an imposing manor house. Molly's mouth slowly opens.

"And then," Amelia mutters, "they went to the biggest, like, _mansion_ they'd ever-ever seen ever and then…"

They're outside now, standing in a line, holding their cases and the cat. A light comes on in the porch of the house, and a figure appears in silhouette. From where it is, it seems an entirely innocuous human form. But as it comes towards them, resolving into the figure of a man, the Children become instinctively quiet. Their heads slowly tip back, all the way back, and by the time the footsteps on the gravel drive come to a stop they are staring into the sky.

"And then," John picks up, "they met the tallest person in the history of the world and then…"

The top of the man is just outside of their field of vision. To them, he might as well be utterly headless, and so they look down again.

Here at eye level, they are staring into the folds of an austere black umbrella. They flinch when it flicks forward, and the tip of it taps each of their toes in turn. High up in the stratosphere, the booming voice of an ancient god is directed at Uncle Sherlock. "So," it says. The word is a sentence in and of itself. "These are your… c_hildren_, are they?"

Both of the Uncles, in rueful unison, "Hello, Mycroft."


	15. Chapter 15

"Amelia," says a whispering voice.

Amelia hops in against the wall, pressing herself into the nugatory safety of the deep dark doorframes. This is standard procedure for ghostly presences. The Uncle taught her that. Though why she should be clinging to the walls when ghosts can walk through them, she doesn't quite understand.

"Amelia!" comes the voice again. It's an urgent, needy voice, calling her as though to warn her of some grave danger. And yet Amelia is not afraid.

This is Uncle Mycroft's house. She has been expecting ghosts since she first saw the gloomy interior of the house. That this is the first one to show up really is a miracle.

She calls back, in the same hush, "Hello?"

"Amelia, it's me!"

"…Oh-my-God-Rory-what-happened-why-are-you-a-ghost ?"

The Children split up more than an hour ago. The plan was to create an accurate map of this sprawling manor. If they are to be staying here, they must be able to navigate. They must know what parts of the house are defensible if they must go into battle, and which parts are safe if they must retreat. Molly was afraid, and went with John, hanging on his arm to explore the ground floor and immediate grounds. Amelia is on the first floor, going from dusty bedroom to dusty bedroom, and _mostly_ now looking for a bathroom. And Rory? Rory went to the attic, which everybody knows is the second scariest place in any house after the basement. They were going to do the basement later on, all of them, together. Safety in numbers. But Rory went to the attic on his own.

And now he's a ghost and he's talking to Amelia down through the walls. "Rory? Rory, answer me, what happened?"

His whispery, distant voice comes again, "I don't think I'm a ghost."

"Well, you really sound like one."

"I don't know where I am," Rory says. And Amelia, listening very closely, has started to notice something. She tells him to keep talking and steps out from the wall. "I was in the attic, and it was really cool, there's lots of stuff, and then there was a little crawl door, and I went through, and now I can't find the door again and I might be in another dimension."

There is a little vent, very curly and decorative, up on the wall. That's where his voice is coming from. "Rory, just wait. I'll get John and Molly and we'll come for you."

"Hurry. It's dark and I don't even know if there are spiders."

"We'll try and bring Scrabble then, too."

Amelia looks down at as much of her map as she has already drawn. Now is the time to test it. She turns around, turns the map around, and follows her straight-as-she-could-without-a-ruler arrows back to the big sweeping stairwell that has stained-glass at the top of it like in Beauty And The Beast. She runs down. But there is no map for these hallways, and she doesn't want to end up like Rory. With no other recourse she stands in the cavernous entrance and shouts as loudly as she dares, "Molly! John!"

"Shh!" comes the harsh reply. Closer than she had expected. On her left, on the floor, she sees what _should_ be their map, with about two arrows on it, lying abandoned on the tiles. The only other lines on that page are from Scrabble's claws.

"What are you doing? We're supposed to be doing rekonnysaints."

"Reconnaissance," John hisses back at her. They're really close. They're at the first door, and John isn't raising his voice. They are _right_ at the door, with their hands and ears pressed against it, listening in. Molly is covering her mouth, holding in all the emotion of her big, trembling eyes. Amelia goes to them on tiptoe and adds her ear to the listening.

"Rory's lost in the attic," she tells them. "What are we hearing?"

"The Uncles are getting shouted at. What did you say about Rory?"

"He's lost in the attic. _Shouted at_?"

"By Mycroft. Is he Uncle Mycroft or what?"

"Well, he's pretty big, so maybe he's Great Uncle? Is Scrabble in a better mood? Because we might need her for spiders upstairs. I think probably saving Rory is more important right now?"

John takes his ear away from the door. It looks like he's testing out whether or not he can bear to stop listening. It's difficult, it's a wrench, but you never leave a man behind, or stranded in a dark, spidery attic for that matter. This is the right thing to do, and he nods sharply. "Let's go."

Off they go, intrepid, with Molly gaining control of herself so that she can take responsibility for the cat. But it is a really difficult thing to leave behind. It hasn't been pleasant, listening in, but John and Molly have been rapt. It's like looking into the past, seeing the Uncles when they were little boys, because only children get shouted at the way Great Uncle Mycroft is shouting at them.

The Uncles are feeling much the same way. Everything was rather congenial at first. There was tea. There were biscuits. They were offered seats on a comfortable old Chesterfield, and might almost have hoped that they were to be made welcome here. Mycroft, for once in his life, might have had a bit of sympathy, might have at least let them relax for now after such a close call.

And yet here they are, and the couch growing less comfortable by the second, shifting, looking away, the Uncle buffing his fingernails on his lapel. Sherlock is timing him. If Mycroft can deliver a dressing-down in excess of twenty-three minutes and twelve seconds, he'll have beaten his personal best.

They're at twenty-one minutes.

"It has been a ridiculous plan from the moment it was conceived," Mycroft says. Sherlock's a little disappointed; this sounds awfully like a conclusion. "Those children were doomed from the outset. From what I understand of temporal physics and what foolish men might term destiny, you have done nothing but create a paradox which may only resolve itself when everything reaches a point where it was as it has always been." The Uncle breathes in deeply. He has a counter-speech all his own for situations just such as this one, but Sherlock gestures subtly for him to remain quiet. "The pair of you," Mycroft continues, "have done nothing but advance your own misery by taunting that creature, and to destroy the childhoods of those four into the bargain. And now it's backfired on you and here you are. Well, I'm sorry, but I won't be involved. By all means stay until you are out of immediate danger, until you can find somewhere else, but in case you hadn't noticed, my work is difficult enough without your troubles to drag behind me."

A moment's silence.

Uncle Sherlock asks, "Is that it? About finished?"

"…_Quite_."

The Uncle leans over, comparing the times on both their watches. "About twenty-two and a half," they murmur in agreement, with the Uncle continuing, "Disappointing, isn't it? After the lofty heights of twenty-three and twelve, twenty-two and a half is a comedown."

It's that small personal joke. Sherlock hears it and it lifts him. It lets him speak again with the strength he needs. Lets him sit straight and say, "We didn't come here to _drag_ you down, dear brother. Heaven forbid. We deemed you the best protection for the Children in a time of need. The Gaffatt will not become your problem."

"It already is!" Mycroft breaks. "It found them once, it will find them again."

The Uncle has had just about enough. Mycroft is just the type that he cannot stand, and the tone of his speeches has been defeatist and selfish. Sherlock would interrupt, but he doesn't quite get there in time. Before he can speak, "Now, _listen here_!" he begins, and Sherlock hangs his head. Dress-down is about to turn stand-up row. It didn't need to. They don't have time for it. But here they are… "You _listen_, elder Holmes! We've had those children for three years. Three years of peace and security, and Cheerios and baked beans and runny noses and scuffed trainers and vast, unending queues for this year's Christmas fad four times over in the name of that lazy sod Claus who never shows up! And never once in all that time have we bothered you. And never once in all that time have you bothered to ask how those children were!"

He doesn't need to ask. He's been watching. But Sherlock's given up on getting a word in edgewise, so there's no telling the Uncle that.

There's no stopping him either, now that he's started on this subject closest to his heart, "We are asking you… No, scratch that, we're not asking, we're already here. We've brought them here that they may be safe while we find another place for them. Now, turn them away if you will. This is your home and that is prerogative, but-"

"Enough!" Sherlock bursts. They both snap to attention. The Uncle is merely bewildered at being dragged down out of his rant. Mycroft is not used to being spoken to in this manner. He is even less used to being asked questions such as, "Are you throwing us out or not?"

And Mycroft is downright _affronted_ to have the Uncle answer for him, "Of course he's not." Opens his mouth to argue and is cut off, "Throw four children and their guardians out into an unfriendly world? He knows exactly what sort of attention that would attract. It's far too dramatic. Too monstrous."

"Uncle," Sherlock cuts in, "While he might be a callous, unfeeling imitation of a human being, that's still my brother you're talking to, and you know what you just implied."

"I believe I _said_ more than implied… Sherlock, I'm sorry to do this to you, but could you possibly go and check on the children?"

He's being asked to leave the room. Continuing the enforced-second-childhood theme of the day, Sherlock is being asked to leave the room, to go and play with his peers and let the adults talk. But he weighs up the pros and cons. For one, he'll be out of the room and away from them. For another, the Children are far more agreeable company. And someone really ought to check on them. And he wouldn't have to listen to any more of this pointless argument.

And the cons are…

Sherlock stands up and tries to disguise his gratitude beneath a forced-on sigh. Outside, he follows the trail of cat hairs, rather pleased by them. Mycroft'll go mad…

Back in the sitting room, the Uncle has only one question for their temporary protector. "You said the Moffiss was already your problem. And I don't believe you could honestly be so cruel as to want to get rid of us. Which leads me to believe that something about having us here scares you."

Mycroft shifts. Gets up and goes to the fireplace. Pours a brandy, but only rolls it around the bottom of the glass. He wants it, oh God, but he wants it. It's not his fault. His hands, at this particular moment, are not his own, but obeying someone else's orders. They don't want him to drink. They just want him to keep his hands occupied, as though he were avoiding the inevitable, as though he didn't want to answer.

"You're one of those so-called Ambiguous Characters, aren't you? You don't have to worry, you know. My wife was one for a while, but she's alright now."

Darkly, sadly, "Oh, shut up, won't you?…"

Meanwhile, Uncle Sherlock has followed the sound of little voices to the attic. Three voices are calling, "Rory! Rory!"

One voice is calling, "Help!"

A fifth is calling, "Miaow…" and really sounding like she couldn't care less.

He pulls himself up at the top of the attic ladder, sitting in the hatch. The three visible children are roaming the sides of the room, running their hands over the walls. "What seems to be the problem?"

"It's Rory," Molly says, sitting down in sheer despair. "He's lost in the walls and we can't even find-"

Sherlock stops her. "A very small door just big enough for one of you to have crawled through, a little off the floor, with a room of its own beyond it." They look tentatively, hopefully at him. "Young Williams," he tells them, standing with his head bowed beneath the rafters, "is not the first to discover that door. You all forget I grew up in this house."

The door is on the far side of the room, just away from the shaft of early morning through the skylight. But he kneels to it without even looking, pushes it open and hears Rory's cry grow momentarily louder before it falls away. Sherlock stretches one arm onto that side, flapping in the dark for a moment. Why can't he find the lightswitch? But then, his arms are considerably longer now than when he left this place behind. He feels more carefully towards the hatch and there it is.

Aside from being momentarily blinded, Rory's never been so glad to see a single bare bulb come on in his life. And as his eyes adjust, and the other children come crawling in to meet him, he sees odd-shaped remnants of carpet that make the floor comfortable. A pile of cushions in one corner forms a comfortable sort of couch. Yellowing paperbacks are heaped in another. And there's a grubby little window in the gable that Amelia begins to clean with the cuff of her jumper, and which in the afternoon will glow golden.

"This isn't fair," Sherlock tells them sulkily. "I'm supposed to stay with you lot and I don't fit through there anymore."

"Do you want one of your old books?" John shouts. It's a token gesture. Not a one of them honestly seems to care.

Scrabble pads over to him, coming to inspect the new light. "Ah. Well, you can always trust a brute animal to be loyal, I suppose," he murmurs, stretching out a hand, intending to scoop her up to his chest. Scrabble, as she passes, scratches him with one vicious paw and, with some difficulty, clambers through the hatch to meet her younger masters. Quashing the strangling motion he finds his hands making in the air, Sherlock rolls his eyes and instead sticks his head inside. "John. Something historical, if you wouldn't mind…"


	16. Chapter 16

"No," Amelia says. In order to show that she is firm and determined, she folds her arms and turns her nose up in the air. The Uncle does that, sometimes. Usually when the Tardis phone is ringing and he's just heard a news bulletin announcing that Aunty River has escaped prison again. Ah, if only she were a little older, a little wiser, dear Amelia might think another few steps ahead. She might realize what a silly course of action she's really taking.

Because every time the Uncle folds his arms, sticks his nose in the air and says, 'No!', in that sharp high voice that's meant to mean he doesn't care, he ends up answering the phone.

She _begins _to see her error when the other children gather round and keen as one, "_Ple-ee-ease?_"

"No." Amelia will be stronger than the Uncle. She'll win. Amelia's not going to cave in, because the fact is, she doesn't want to do what they're asking of her, she's really very scared, and she's not _going_ to do it.

Then Molly gets in front of her. That's alright. Amelia can handle Molly. Molly is only _really_ effective against Uncle Sherlock anyway. This is all still totally fine. Amelia Jessica Pond will not be gotten to a silly, soppy little girl like Molly. And _don't dare_ say that Amelia too is a little girl, because she's not silly or soppy and anyway, she counts as a boy.

But Molly has Scrabble. Hugged up in her arms, hind legs hanging, chin crushed up against her forearms. With one hand, she is just able to take a little paw and make it wave, and in a silly, soppy baby voice says, "Please help the others, Amelia."

Pretending to be the kitten…

Yeah, right. Not a chance.

Scrabble says again, "Pretty-pretty please with sugar on top?"

"Well, why does it have to be _me_?" Amelia balks. In that moment, she is defeated. Even agreeing to argue about it is agreeing to be nominated. She's done, and she knows it. It makes her rage and she flings a chubby finger in courtroom accusation at the silent boys, "Aren't you supposed to be, like, all really brave, or something?"

That's a complete joke. They _say_ they are, but Amelia has never really believed it. Come on; John and Rory? Brave? John still has to have his stupid stuffed tiger or he can't sleep and Rory? Rory? Don't even get her started on Rory, there just _isn't_ time for Amelia to give you the list about Rory, it'll be _bedtime_ if she starts to give you the list about Rory and she'd probably have to stay up late to finish it.

"You only have to _talk_ to him," John says. 'Only', he says. Like it's dead easy. If it's so easy he ought to go and do it himself. Before Amelia can say that, and maybe because he knows she was going to, he adds, "You talked to the _Gaffatt_."

That is a very compelling fact. Amelia gnaws a while on the lid of her favourite blue marker considering it. "Alright, I'll do it." She caps all of her markers and files them neatly into their colour-spectrum-organized places in the packet, closes her sketchbook. Muttering, "I'll need slippers, and Alice."

Molly drops Scrabble and climbs down from the bed to get the slippers. John jumps off the footboard and runs across the hall to fetch Amelia's ragdoll.

In Uncle Mycroft's house, they do not all share one room. There are two rooms, each with a huge double bed in it, one for boys and one for girls. The children do not like it, they are not comfortable with it, it frightens them, and each of them knows they will not sleep well tonight at all. It was, therefore, their heartfelt desire to stay together right up until bedtime.

And that's where they run into troubles.

Bedtime is eight-thirty.

It is now eight o'clock. More precisely, it's a little after eight; it's taken them a few minutes to resolve their little spat. There is less than half-an-hour until bedtime. They ought to already be drinking their hot chocolate. Then they'll have to go and brush their teeth and wash their hands and faces. All of that, and with time dwindling swiftly out from under them, leaves very little time indeed for a story. And so far there is no sign at all of the Uncles to get all of this started.

"I've just thought of something _awful_," Rory groans, his eyes glassy and lost as any Cassandra. "What if Uncle Mycroft doesn't have any hot chocolate?"

"Hush," and Amelia waves him into silence. She puts on her slippers and tightens the belt of her dressing gown. By this time, John has returned, and places the doll ceremoniously into the crook of her arm (where its head and feet promptly flop down to her waist on either side). Amelia takes a few solemn steps to the doorway. There she stops and checks the map they have drawn of this vast house and stuck up under the lightswitch. Then turns to address her people. "Everything's going to be fine," she says, and is so impressed with how solid and confident she sounds. Her voice is _almost_ like the Uncle's, except that the Uncle has never felt this way. He always knows exactly what to do and never just _says_ things will be fine because it's a wish he's making. "I will go and talk to Uncle Mycroft. He'll tell me where the proper Uncles are. And we'll only be, like, ten minutes behind on bedtime. It'll be totally fine, okay?"

Rory gets up so that he can wait by the door. He'll close it behind her and open it again if he hears her coming. He'll slam it once she's inside, if he needs to. And before she goes he says softly to her, "Good luck."

"Whatever," she shrugs. For a boy, Rory's really soppy too sometimes.

She knows exactly where she has to go. The Uncles told her before they vanished, wherever they vanished to. 'If you need anything, Uncle Mycroft will be in the study, which is the door just off the big front hall where we came in.' Amelia was drawing at the time and just said 'Okay'. She gets really quite upset thinking that might have been the last thing they would ever say to her and she wasn't even really listening. But there's no time to get all caught up just now. She slips down the stairs, and across the hall, and reaches up to the handle of the door.

The doors in Uncle Mycroft's house are huge, like everything else. She supposes they have to be, given that Uncle Mycroft is huge. But they're thick and very heavy too, and it takes all of Amelia's little weight to make it swing.

The door is completely silent. Riding the handle carries her right into the room, and drops her down on deep, soft carpet like a field of grass. A cliff face of a desk towers over her, and behind it a mountainous chair, and a whole world beyond that made of books. In the two corners are two great knights, sculptures, looking almost life-size. She catches herself thinking that Rory and John would love this, before she remembers her purpose.

Uncle Mycroft is in the chair, talking into a telephone the size of a trombone.

He is nodding while someone else talks. Then he says, "Someone ought to tell that awful Mallory to remember who he bloody works for."

_Bloody_.

He said it, right out, up there in his chair, he said it. Amelia gasps. A tiny little noise, and she stops it short with the hair of her doll, but he hears her.

The other person is talking again. Uncle Mycroft's hand stretches forward, grabbing the front of the desk. He draws himself across, peering down at her over the precipice. "We'll continue this later," he says to the phone, cutting the other person off, which is really rude, but that must just mean he's the boss, but if he wants to keep talking it's totally okay and Amelia can come back later and so she turns on her heel and runs for the door.

The door has swung shut again, and it is a much greater task to try and _pull_ it than it was to surf it in.

"Amelia, isn't it?" His voice rumbles in the floor beneath her feet (or so, at least, she will tell the other children later on). So Amelia stops trying to pull the door and turns around slowly on the spot. Her head is already tucked so far down on her shoulders that she finds it difficult to nod. "Come along. Don't be shy. I'd heard you were quite the opposite of _shy_."

That's a taunt. That picks her head up. That moves her no more or less than _three_ steps closer to the desk again.

"There now, that's better. Is something the matter?"

"I…" she begins, but her throat is dry. Her tongue feels woollen. "Well, I mean, _we_, all of us..."

His chair moves on easy wheels to the side of the desk and a hand is held out to her. It can reach her too, on the end of an impossibly long arm, like a cartoon, like Mr Richards the science teacher except nobody's supposed to know about that. She moves toward it, but will not take it.

"Please, but where are our Uncles?"

"Is there something you need?"

"It's just it's nearly bedtime and there's, like, this whole thing we usually do and they don't miss it, except this one time, and then the Storyteller came, and it was sort of awful, and the back of his head tried to bite me-" She's rambling. She always does that when she's scared and she talks loads about stupid things. And yet, Uncle Mycroft looks as though he understands. Even the bit about the biting head, which he couldn't possibly. Could he?

"Why don't you tell me what it is you usually do ahead of bedtime?" She explains it to him. The whole ritual, every step of the way. And at the end, in much the same way she did, he pauses, and thinks it all over very carefully. He is not humouring her. It is not a lie. And he does not look as though he's going to tell her to get out and never come back. "Well," he concludes, "I think we can manage that. Run along. I'll follow you."

"But… the Uncles, please, where-?"

"Hush now. Time's wasting."

Amelia folds her arms, but does not stick her nose in the air. "I talked to the Moffiss, you know."

"So did I, once. Now run along."

He gets up and opens the door for her so she won't have to struggle with it. With just a trace of her former mistrust, Amelia starts toward the endless stairs. Uncle Mycroft goes down another hall, smiling reassuringly whenever she glances back. She walks, slowly, until she reaches the landing and he's out of sight, bolting back to the bedroom, where Rory is ready to let her in and to close the door once she's safe. "Alright," she gabbles, "I don't know how long we've got so I'm talking really fast, but here it is; Uncle Mycroft seems to think he can do bedtime like the Uncles do and I'm sort of starting to think maybe he could a bit, but he wouldn't tell me where the Uncles are now and also he talked to the Moffiss this one time and I think that's everything."

The other three sit in stunned silence.

Molly is the one who voices their greatest concern. Slowly she draws Scrabble into a close hug and murmurs, "You mean he's coming up _here_?"

The moment she says that, Amelia realizes it's true. Realizes just exactly what she committed them to. She joins the quiet trembling until there is a soft, perfunctory knock at the door. Nobody has to get up. Uncle Mycroft opens it anyway.

Two things are immediately apparent. Firstly, he is smiling. Secondly, he has a large breakfast tray balanced on his free hand.

From this, he takes a small, shallow bowl of cream and sets it on the floor. Scrabble is bought over at once and leaps down to investigate.

The tray also has four small cups on it, none of which match. There is a pink one with flowers, and one with little painted stick figures, there's a camouflage one and one which is _actually _from an _actual_ hospital in London. John reaches for it so fast he almost overturns it. He's too excited to even apologize for it. And in the mugs, on top of the rich cocoa, as Rory lovingly sighs, "_Marshmallows_. Cool!"

"But we're not allowed mars-" Molly gets Amelia's elbow in her ribs for that.

Uncle Mycroft pets Molly's hair, the way Uncle Sherlock does sometimes. "Well, what your Uncles don't know won't hurt them. I won't tell if you won't."

…That is so cool.

This is the joint thought of all four children, reached at once, and the culmination of those minds is almost audible.

Far above all their notices, Uncle Mycroft allows himself a small moment of satisfaction. Having never been cool before, and having had very little experience of the concept, he is nonetheless rather pleased to be considered such. After all, it means so much to _them_. He's lifted in their estimations, and all over some tempered sugar. This could prove quite interesting, this _children_ thing.

"Now, I thought since you're already behind on time, we might have the story while you enjoy your hot chocolate, rather than after."

Which, again, is against the usual, but then again didn't they just decide that Uncle Mycroft is cool?

They discuss it in little glances. Cautiously, their last test, Rory asks, "What _sort_ of story?" He has not, will never, never _wants_ to, forget the horror of Uncle Sherlock's early story attempts. He is wary and there is nothing wrong about that.

There is still one thing left on the tray. Molly, being knowledgeable and inquisitive and not at all nosy, is investigating. The item itself is under a tea towel. She picks up the edge and peers beneath, and a loud whistling gasp sticks in her throat. "Go ahead," says Uncle Mycroft. He removes the cloth with a flourish and three more noises of surprise and delight join the first.

_Cookies_. Not just biscuits, but big, crumbly cookies, different shapes and sizes so you know they didn't come out of a packet, big thick ones, dark and chocolately and full of chips. There are five. Molly has the first one. _Uncle Mycroft_ has the second. The other children grab for the remainder before they can be gone.

"But what sort of story?" Rory insists, through his first mouthful.

Aren't they clever?, thinks Uncle Mycroft. Then again, what should he have expected? So he thinks, carefully. There must be some simple tale he can weave for them, something with knights and spaceships and mortal peril. There are basic formulas he can fill out in diverse comforting ways. Maybe they'll hear something new from him, something they're not used to.

Uncle Mycroft is beginning to quite like the idea.

But while one part of his mind is crafting what he feels is the proper voice for a wise and friendly dinosaur, there is another voice.

It is smaller. It is softer. It is nastier and darker and utterly inevitable. He has no choice but to listen. _Talking dinosaurs,_ it says to him, with a snarling laugh. _Talking dinosaurs would be terrific fun. _

_But listen to me_, and the voice has a snide, smug sort of drawl. _Dinosaurs can wait. They're all dead anyway. Dig up a dinosaur tomorrow._

No. He doesn't want to. Uncle Mycroft wants to tell the children about the dinosaur _now_. He doesn't want to talk about anything else. He does not want to listen to the small, inexorable voice.

It's been quiet, that voice. He had almost dared to believe it might be gone.

_Listen to me_, it says. _Listen. I'll tell you what tale we're going to weave tonight_.

Uncle Mycroft's throat has closed. He swallows, twice, and through a shaky smile he says, "This is a story about two princes." The voice gives him words, which he faithfully repeats, "And I know that sounds like one of Sherlock's stories, but don't worry. I promise you won't be bored."


	17. Chapter 17

"This, then, is a story about two Princes. Ideally I would like it to have a big, bombastic opening. A chase, maybe, or an explosion. Maybe a minor character being hunted down through dark woods, that sort of thing. It makes me very sad to relate to you, dear Children, this story doesn't have one of those. But what can you do? Sometimes you're just telling the tale, and you can't control how it begins, what happens, how it ends. This is especially true when telling one's _own_ story.

"Not that this is my story. No, no, not at all, that's not what I meant, this has nothing to do with me. Not at all. This is story about two princes, remember?

"And sadly, as I was saying, it has a very boring beginning. There was a king and queen, obviously, ruling a kingdom, relatively happy I suppose. They had a son, who was the first prince, waited a while and had another one. Then the king died, but that's really not part of the story. I just thought you ought to know, he won't be mentioned again. And if the queen isn't mentioned either, it's not because anything happened to her. It's just because she was cold and removed and didn't do a lot of talking to the princes. Generally did her level best to keep herself out of their lives at all costs but again, that's not part of the story."

In the interests of efficient record-keeping, the narrator feels it pertinent to note the following – the Children are _rapidly_ becoming unamused. They expect better than this rambling mish-mash from any storyteller, and in particular from someone they have deigned to class as _cool_. John and Rory exchange a disappointed glance. Maybe this Great Uncle of theirs doesn't understand what _cool_ really means – it can be taken away as easily as it is given.

"Oh, don't look at me like that. I know you're bored. I warned you, this would sound like one of Sherlock's bloody stories-"

Molly gasps. Amelia's face darkens; she's heard him use that word before. It's supposed to be an angry word, not a word to just go and use whenever you like. She is beginning to doubt the wisdom of leaving four special, important children in the care of someone who uses the word 'bloody' all the time.

"-but have a little faith. There'll be a monster in a bit. You'll like that. You might even recognize it."

There's a smile on Mycroft's face. It's foreign and unfamiliar. It has absolutely nothing to do with how he feels. He can't make it go away and he _hates_ it.

"First, I need to tell you about the elder prince. Having a little brother was nothing like he had imagined it would be. The younger boy was wild and wilful, and refused to learn any of his lessons. He would often claim that he already knew whatever someone was trying to teach him. Worse still, he was often right about this. There is nothing more galling to a big brother than to feel that he has nothing to share.

"It made him very sad. He wanted nothing more in the world than to protect his brother. He wanted him to be safe from all harm. Much the way your Uncles have protected you from the dark, wicked things that have made their lives so sad and difficult.

"It makes them feel nice. They do it because they have to, but it brings them great pleasure too, keeping you from those evil clutches. And it would have made the eldest prince very happy if only his little brother had just once needed him, and needed his help."

_Oh, look at young Watson_, hisses the wicked voice. No longer satisfied with telling Mycroft what to say, with shaping the expression of his face, now it wants to watch. It wants to comment and invade. _He's thinking of that baby sister. Oh, if only he knew… Need him? If only he knew. Someday I'll have him. Someday, he'll be _forcing_ himself not to help her anymore. Oh yes, yes, I have plans for Baby Harriet, oh yes…_

"No!"

A sudden outburst, the man breaking through the monstrous façade. But the Children are staring. The monster drives it's claws deeper, reasserts its control and corrects its silly, struggling host.

"No, no, he never did need his big brother. Not once.

"Until, one day, a great shadow fell over the peaceful kingdom. …Yes, now you're settling in. Now you're paying some attention. Well, good. Yes, a terrible black dragon had come along. It swallowed up the sun. And it brought strange, dark magic with it. It brought bad luck. Everybody, all of a sudden, was having a terrible time. Nothing you could blame on the sunless sky, oh no, but a sort of general madness overcame the people. All of a sudden, children who had just wandered off were lost and gone forever. Someone who was ill last night was dying this morning. Couples who'd been together for years fought over nothing at all. Happy families shattered in an instant, and peaceful negotiations with other lands sprung into hot, bloody war."

"Was it a curse?" cries Amelia.

"Was it witchcraft?" is John's suggestion.

Rory furrows his brow, taps his forehead, trying to think of something better and getting absolutely nowhere.

The hissing voice draws Mycroft's eyes to the fourth of them and grins, _Oh, look, Hooper's got her mouth open. Listen to this, this'll be good_.

"Was it a form of mass hysteria like those experienced in medieval France when people made bread from flour that was slightly red, not knowing that it was actually infected with a sort of fungus called ergominey?"

_It's ergotamine_, laughs the invading voice, _but bless her, she tries_.

"It was the influence of the black dragon, of course. And no one was affected more deeply by its evil spell than was the young prince. He fell into a very dark place, and the kingdom mourned, for it was suspected that he would never escape it ever again. Everybody suspected he might well die, or that something even more terrible would befall him, and he would never be seen again.

"Finally, the young man locked himself away. He found a room in the palace that had no windows and no lights. He turned the key in the door and shut out everyone. Everyone. It seemed to be the end. There seemed to be no way to reach him now.

"But his big brother wasn't going to allow that, was he? This was his chance. Finally, the boy needed his help. So he put on his cloak, and he saddled his horse, and he rode for many, many days and nights. Then, far over the hills, beyond the horizon, he found the place where the great dragon's tail hung down to the earth. And he made the horse jump on it, all four hooves, all four horseshoes. The dragon let out a great scream, and while its mouth was open the sun escaped.

"It's great tail wrapped around the prince, horse and all. It carried him struggling up into the sky, stabbing between the enormous scales with his sword, but the dragon could no longer be surprised, and it did not release him. And when the prince was right up near its eyes, it boomed in an awful voice, _You and me should talk_."

Amelia stops breathing. On a sort of instinct, she stops blinking too. She reaches for the nearest arm to her and finds Rory's. Pulling him in close, she whispers all the things that she knows in his ear, and he stops breathing too. In hisses and glances, they settle their plan, and each of them moves forward a little to relay all of these things to Molly and John.

_Oh, what are they up to now?_ the voice sighs. _Honestly… Can't _wait_ until I'm in control of this lot. It'll make them so much bloody easier to keep up with. I'll knock some of this plotting and scheming out of them. They won't need to be so very clever when they have Doctors and Detectives to rely on. Keep an eye on them, Mycroft; they're only little things. Even _you_ should be able to handle that…_

"The dragon asked the prince why he had come to fight him, when there was so much peril in that quest. The prince told all about his brother. This was a very silly thing to do; the dragon hadn't known there was another prince. The young one had locked himself in the windowless room so that he wouldn't be seen. He hadn't been affected by the spell, he'd been _hiding_. And his big brother, who had wanted so much to protect him, make him safe, ruined all of that. He talked and talked and talked and told all his brother's talents and secrets…

"And the dragon paid such rapt attention, enchanted by it all. Then it said, _Maybe I'll leave this kingdom alone after all_. The prince was very proud of himself for this. He'd saved everyone, all the people who depended on him. He'd done very well. _Of course, I'll be taking that little brother of yours with me_."

Molly doesn't believe it. It can't be true. What the others all believe, it can't possibly be true. Scrabble would have noticed, wouldn't she? Scrabble always notices these things. So, even though Rory said it was really important that Great Uncle Mycroft not know there's anything going on, Molly chances a look over the end of the bed. The saucer of cream is still there. As a matter of fact Scrabble seems to have hardly drunk any of it at all. She is lying on her side, breathing deeply, all her paws stretched out in front of her, apparently asleep. There is something just a little bit wrong, a little awkward, about her position. Molly sits back and tries to hide her terror. But she grabs for John's hand and the Children, in that moment, know what they have to do.

John and Rory leap forward, each attaching himself to one of Great Uncle Mycroft's arms. They make effective, weighty shackles while Molly picks up the limp kitten and Amelia gets the key out of the lock on the door. "C'mon!" she screams to the boys as Molly runs past into the hall.

Great Uncle Mycroft summons all of his strength and _shoves_ the monster hard, forcing it down into the hollow places at the base of his skull. The hissing voice bellows at him but he has enough control that he can stop fighting the boys. He puts them down and pushes them toward the door. "Yes," he says, breathless with the struggle, "Yes, go! Go, children, and pay no more attention to me now. Quickly!" They rush out, dragging the door shut behind them. The boys hang on the handle while Amelia tries to push the key back into its hole, but her hands tremble. She fumbles and drops it. Molly passes it back to her.

Looking up, she sees for just a second through the keyhole. Great Uncle Mycroft shakes his head once hard, like a dog throwing off water. He gets up and moves slowly, drifting, toward the door. But he hears her slot the key home and suddenly rushes. The door rattles while they fight over it. Rory has the handle, John has Rory and Molly grabs John's feet and finally they can close it tight enough for Amelia to turn the key.

They fall into a heap, terrified and exhausted. For just a moment there is relieved silence. Then there's a huge thump on the other side of the door. They scream as one and scuttle back across the landing.

"Oh, Children?" calls their poor Great Uncle. Or rather, calls the voice of the vile thing inside him. It is the same singsong that spoke to them at home. But then the Uncle was right in the next room. Uncle Sherlock was on his way. But now, but now… They don't even know where their Uncles are. Molly begins to keen.

"No," Rory hisses to her, "don't let it hear you crying. We have to be strong." So Molly bites her lip and tries very, very hard.

"Oh, _Chil_-dren? This isn't very nice, you know. Locking somebody in a room? Your Uncles left me in charge, remember? Whatever will they say when they find out about this?"

"You're not Great Uncle Mycroft!" Amelia barks. "You're the Moffiss and we all know it and we're safe and so _there_!"

John laughs as loudly as he can force himself, so the Gaffatt will hear him. The monster bellows with rage and starts beating the door again.

Maybe, they decide, it's best not to taunt it.

Rory looks around at them, shocked into silence. Looks at Molly, trying hard to wake up the kitten. He gets up, and stands straight. He takes Amelia's hand; if she'll follow him, so will John and Molly. And Amelia knows it's important, so she doesn't ask any questions, but lets her feet do all her talking. John sees them leaving and helps Molly to go ahead of him. The four of them, in silent procession, leaving the raging Moffiss in its cage.

They are as far away as the stairwell before Amelia breaks, "Alright, Rory, where are we going?"

"All we need to do," he says, trying to sound strong for them, "is stay safe until the Uncles come back. The Gaffatt won't be able to get out of that room, but in case it does, we have to hide. We'll be totally fine, don't worry." He leads them, with his chin up, all the way up all the stairs and into the dark of the attic. "Everybody has to tiptoe, in case he hears us up here."

They creep across the boards and through the little hatch, into the secret room. Rory puts the light on, and doesn't imagine it will be switched off again tonight. He points to the cushions piled in the corner and watches the others sit down. Molly puts her head on Amelia's shoulder and curls up. John sits straight, and Rory gives him Scrabble to hold in his lap. "Keep your hand on her belly. So long as she's breathing it's fine." Then he starts back toward the hatch.

The girls are quietly comforting each other. John sees him leaving and whispers, "Where are you going?"

"To keep watch. Don't worry. Everybody try and sleep. I'll let you all know it something happens." Then, when the girls aren't watching, he looks at John. Points at his eyes and then at them. _Watch them_. John nods, stern and military.

Rory climbs out through the hatch. He closes it over so that no light shows to give them away. Then he hides himself, behind a box where he can still see the stairs, and where no one could see him. He crouches down, and yawns once, and settles in to wait.

* * *

><p>[AN - Hey guys. This is sort of an awkward question but does anybody still dig this story? I feel like it's gotten very meta and very serious. So if you got into it for the fun and hijinks, I doubt you're still with me now. I'd love to keep going with it for another while, but it would be great if there were folks actually enjoying it! (Oh, and _ideas _are always welcome. I don't think there's a single chapter in this tale that wasn't triggered by something truly weird!)


	18. Chapter 18

Dawn is pinking the treetops when the Uncles finally return. They fall from foot to foot, exhausted, out of the Tardis and onto the path toward the house. Hoping for a few snatched hours of sleep before the Children wake. They'll wake naturally, of course; there'll be no alarms tomorrow. There'll be no school. One of them, probably Sherlock seeing that the superphone doesn't travel well, will have to rollover and put in a call to the principal excusing them. Chickenpox, maybe, or did they use that during the last invasion of Ice Warriors? Measles, then.

"Let's just say ebola," Sherlock yawns. "Then no one will look twice when they never go in again."

"They're going back to school."

"How?"

"In disguise, if they must, but they're going back to school. They can have a long weekend, but come Monday? We are re-establishing normality, as completely as possible. It's the only way they'll ever be able to feel safe."

It's the lack of sleep, or the fact that he hasn't eaten, or it's getting so far and then running into this but Sherlock snaps. "Safe?!" he cries, "Did you _see_ the state of our street? How are they ever supposed to feel _safe_ there again?"

"We're going to make it safe," the Uncle says, quiet and unshakeable.

He is, by now, a step ahead of his more-negative compatriot. He can't see the look on Sherlock's face when he echoes again "Safe?" The Uncle sighs and nods. Were he honest, were he to bare his soul, the Uncle doesn't believe the words coming out of his mouth either, but he could do without Sherlock's nightmare moaning. He could do without the echo of, "Normality?" Except he notices, the echo was softer. Was farther behind him.

Sherlock stopped walking. The Uncle turns and sees him standing, staring up at the front of the house.

"Normality," he says again, "of the sort that doesn't include playing in the attic until extremely late?"

He points. The Uncle follows the line to the little window, the dim little light inside. Two storeys beneath it, the light is still burning in what would have been the boys' room. "I don't think they're playing."

They forget their tiredness and run to the door. Somewhere along the way, Sherlock passes the Uncle and breaks into the hall calling out for Mycroft. "Something's happened to him," he breathes. "If he's had to hide the children away, something must have happened to him." Out of the machine-gun fire of possibilities crashing through his skull one is so terrible that he grabs the Uncle's lapel. "_Amelia_. She spoke to it. It's followed Amelia."

There is no kind way to tell him the truth. Instead, the Uncle disguises the harshness in kind facts; he places his hand on Sherlock's shoulder and tells him clearly, "The Gaffatt asked Amelia to recite a nursery rhyme. She did not complete it. She's safe."

"Then what on Earth-?!" But there's only one possibility left. However improbable it might seem… And really, it does seem improbable, really it does, but…

But it explains things, doesn't it? Doesn't it explain, in some terrible way, all these years of intense reserve? So withdrawn, so alone. Wouldn't this go some way towards explaining…?

"Mycroft," he breathes, already turning to the stairs. "Mycroft! Damn it, Uncle, you said they'd be alright here!"

Yes. And that was a mistake. He just had no idea the elder Holmes was so far gone. As they come to the first floor landing, from the sounds beyond the locked door, it sounds like a full possession. A character wholly inhabited by the monstrous maestro. Sherlock is stopped in the end of the hallway, glaring. The Uncle tries to put him aside. After all, he himself has had the most success with the Moffiss. He'll be able to talk to it again. Get it gone, if only for an hour or so. Give that poor man Mycroft some respite.

He tries, only to be violently shoved back. "No. That's my brother it's got. And while there are a number of forces to which my brother might _gladly_ be given, this isn't one of them."

There will be no arguing with him. The Uncle steps back. "Be careful," he says. "Remember, it feeds on you. When you rage, when you're delighted, when you feel _anything_ strongly, that's what it wants."

Sherlock only points him to the attic stairs. "Go."

"Good luck."

It pains the Uncle to leave him behind. But there are the children to think of. Anyway, maybe it's time. He just worries about him, that's all. The Uncle came from other creators, and recently. He has that at least to hold over the Gaffatt's head. Sherlock has no such thing. There is some _idea_, some dim and distant memory of an originator with him, but he's become very far removed from that. He just worries.

But still, he climbs that last lonely stairwell. The hatch is shut on the little light, leaving the rafters in utter darkness. He creeps a few steps forward, but it's no use. He reaches for the sonic screwdriver and thinks the light into life. In the sudden green glow, the outlines of a hip-high person appear, roughly two feet away. Crossing those two feet between them is a long, trembling steel. A sword, matter of fact. Knowing this house, it might equally be a stage prop or the real thing. The Uncle swallows the lump in his throat and holds out his hand. "Rory, give me the sword."

"No," comes the brave little reply.

"Rory, it's _me_. And I think you're scratching the fabric of my trousers."

"How do I _know_ it's you?" The Uncle waggles the sonic, makes it buzz to comfort the child. He uses it to draw great circles of light around his bow tie, and around the Tardis key still hanging from his hand. "Yeah, but how do I know it's _really_ you?" He struggles for the words to express sentiments that really are beyond his little grasp. "Like, _inside_. Because that was still Uncle Mycroft downstairs, but at the same time it wasn't."

Despite the fact that it brings his chest awfully close to the tip of the sword, the Uncle crouches down. "If I weren't who I said I was, would I know that instead of punishing you for fighting at school, you were bought an ice-cream sundae and told to keep it a secret from me?"

The sword shakes. It's too long and heavy for little arms, but they hold it up.

"You mean, if you were the Moffiss, you wouldn't be able to know?"

"No. I'd be waiting for it to come out in a big dramatic argument later on. I wouldn't be able to just know and be quiet and smile and say, Well, yes, I suppose he did deserve it after all."

The sword hits the floor with a clatter, and Rory throws his arms around the long, familiar neck. "We did our best," he whispers.

In the corridor below, Uncle Sherlock hears only the clatter, but he knows they did their best. He knows they did incredibly well, and that four children of lesser breeding and intelligence wouldn't have stood a chance. He hangs in the silent air on his own side of the door and makes himself forget it. After all, the Gaffatt lives when he rages. He listens to the snarling inside, a rattling of noise and scrabbling feet and self-satisfied laughter.

Then he puts his shoulder to the door and knocks it off the lock.

Inside, he finds his brother. Rather, he finds a demon inhabiting his brother's body (and forces himself to bear this in mind). It is sitting in an armchair, in the corner, just out of the light. In this dim corner, it has gathered about it a number of inconsequential little things. A book with a softened paper spine. One of Rory's awful adventures, no doubt. It is wearing Molly's ragged pink blanket as a king wears his ermine cloak, and Amelia's white rabbit slippers are hooked onto the tips of his brother's Italian leather loafers. It has crowned itself with John's woollen bobble hat. On the arms of the chair, cradled like close friends in his long arms, the doll, the Action Man, the tiger. On its lap, open as if for storytime, Amelia's sketchbook.

"Oh, how dynamic. I do like an explosive entrance. They locked me in," it says, with Mycroft's smile. "I confess, I must have given them a terrible fright. I was awfully put out at first. But, as you see, I've managed to… _amuse_ myself. Look at this one! Is this what they're going to do to me? I'm full of arrows in this one. You haven't been giving the Children _arrows_, have you, brother dear? I'd be terribly disappointed in you if you had. I know Mummy would be terribly disappointed."

"Mycroft," Sherlock says.

"Yes?" the Creature grins.

Sherlock keeps his eyes on the floor and his feelings in check. "_No_. I am addressing _Mycroft_. Who is in there and fighting you and can hear me."

The creature wrinkles Mycroft's nose. "No he can't. He was doing _very_ well. If it's any consolation, it wasn't until I built myself this little nest that I was really able to shut him up. No, your brother is very much in the back seat now."

"For God's sake, Mycroft, put your fists up!" And there is something. There is a response to his bellowing, and it is just a flinch, but it's there. "You're lying," he tells the creature. "He's fighting tooth and claw."

"And what of it? He can fight all he likes. I'm not even trying yet. I could, were I so inclined, continue reading through this fascinating chronicle of Amelia's paranoia, dressed like this, and perform a short musical number, and your brother still will not trouble me in the slightest. Give up, why don't you? I'll return him to you, utterly unharmed, when I am good and ready."

Sherlock _begins_, but only begins, to want a cigarette very much. The Gaffatt locks eyes on his trembling fingers and grins. "Sit down. Let's talk about you."

The Uncle heard Sherlock's shouting, and now there's only silence. His heart pounds. If Sherlock has lost control, he might just have to crawl through that hatch with the rest of the children and the cat. But there are no footsteps, nobody coming to get them. He gives them the benefit of the doubt for now. And if it comes to it, there's always the sword.

In the meantime, he stays where he is. It was the wish of the Children's Guardian (also known as 'young Williams') that his charges not be wakened. It took them ages to fall asleep, he says. All he does is wriggle through the hatch for a moment – not even all the way through, with his wiggling feet sticking out – to make sure Scrabble is still breathing. He then wriggles back out, with the aid of the Uncle's hand around his ankles, and pulls the hatch closed behind him. "She's okay."

"Why are we worried about Scrabble?"

"The Moffiss put something in her cream and we couldn't wake her up. And we had cookies, but there was nothing in those. And I know we shouldn't have, but he put marshmallows in the hot chocolate, and it would have been rude to say we weren't allowed."

"Shh, now. You've had a very long night."

"Somebody had to keep watch."

"And you've been so very brave, Rory-"

"And John too, he had to keep the girls calm and make sure Scrabble was okay."

"-And John too, but shh now. It's alright. Shh." The Uncle shrugs off his jacket, balls it up into a pillow and puts it down on his lap. Gently, he tries to guide Rory down to sleep. His fingers just glance the little neck, and feel the pulse that twitters there, hummingbird fast. "Shh. I couldn't be prouder of you if you'd just made a million from an enlightening, brightening children's classic. I just couldn't. That wouldn't even be equally proud. This is the single best thing you, in your young life to date, could possibly have done."

"Somebody had to keep watch," Rory yawns.

"And I've come to relieve you of the task. Stand down, Captain Williams. That's an order. A strong soldier needs his rest."

"Sir-" he begins, and pauses for another long, full-body experience of a yawn. Mumbling, "…yes, sir…"

Once he is asleep, the Uncle looks down at him, stroking his hair. "You shall have ice cream for breakfast, all of you. And burgers for lunch. And ice cream again for dinner, with cake for afters, and all the cola you can drink, and oh _God_, Sherlock, do something, would you?!"

He's trying to. If he could get a word in edgewise, Sherlock actually has an idea of what he might do. But the Moffiss has discovered that it very much enjoys the sound of Mycroft's voice. Maybe his brother's in there struggling after all; he always did like to listen to himself.

It witters, thoroughly delighted with itself, "Amelia does have a talent with those Crayola markers, you know. I ough to take my shoes off, I'm stretching her slippers. Bet they're comfy, too. You'd like a cigarette, wouldn't you? I have some, actually. Right here." It shuffles in its chair, shedding a corner of its blanket-cape and fishes a pack of cigarettes from Mycroft's jacket. "Especially for you. Go on. What's the harm in just one? I've got a light here for you too."

"No, thank you."

"Oh, do. Little bit of what you fancy and all that."

"Mycroft?"

The creature smiles to be addressed so casually. Purrs, "_Yes_?"

"Operation."

It furrows Mycroft's brow. "I beg your pardon?"

"I wasn't talking to you. Mycroft, we kept a frog in a Tupperware dish, do you remember?"

"No," the Moffiss gasps.

Again, with more conviction now that he sees it wounded, "I was _not_ talking to you. Mycroft, you once witnessed a wedding for a couple who'd run away to Gretna, entirely against your will."

The Gaffatt stands, dragging Mycroft up from the chair. The Children's belongings fall away from it, as though it cannot make them stick anymore. "These are not my stories!" it roars.

"_No_!" Sherlock roars back. Then remembers the Uncle's warnings and sits calmly on the end of the bed. "No, not at all. These are just our life. And let's face it, we were never the closest, but we _do_ have a few private jokes you don't know about. Mycroft… Oh God, I've run out. Mycroft, Operation! Respond, before I have to reuse the frog. Remember that buzzer noise. Remember this? 'Oh, myeh-myeh-myeh, you looked, that's cheating, myeh-myeh', well _yes_, Mycroft, I confess, I looked!"

The Moffiss opens Mycroft's mouth to reply. Its' words stick, and then are tormented as Mycroft struggles, stretching his jaw in the other direction to thwart it, lingering, straining. Then he wrenches sideways, falling to hang on the arm of the chair. The tug of war is won. Sherlock waits, terrified, to see who the victor was.

"…Every time," come the hoarse first words. "Only way you could ever get the funny bone. I knew that already."

"Yes," Sherlock growls. Hiding relief inside derision, "Yes, you're _terribly_ clever, aren't you, brother?" But he crosses the room. He helps Mycroft stand straight again. Removes John's hat from his head. As his hand lowers, Mycroft take sit from him, staring at it.

He mumbles, "Oh my… Where... the children, what-?"

"They're safe."

He ought to add, 'No thanks to you'. Instead, he looks at his brother, trembling as he tries to sit back down. He takes hold of him at the elbow, and steadies him into the chair.

* * *

><p>[AN - Many thanks to all those who sent kind messages last time. If anyone's interested, the closest I can get to a thank you is the little doodles from this I've posted on my tumblr (you can find me as poisonsal). They are few and sketchy, but cute. Much, much love - Sal]


	19. Chapter 19

"You're enjoying this," Mycroft says as his last leather belt is tightened around his chest, holding him to his office chair.

Sherlock tugs one last time, making sure the bonds are tight and there's no chance of him being able to escape. "You agreed. If the Uncle and I are to experiment with the presence the enemy maintains with you, you'll have to be restrained." He gets caught on the word _restrained_. It's a lovely word. Sherlock likes it. Then he remembers himself and his excuses, "For the good of the children."

"But you're enjoying it."

"What of it? I probably don't need to remind you of the _ship's arrest_ incident."

"You were a pirate."

"I was five. You put me in a cupboard. And I wasn't even bloody possessed."

"A matter of opinion." Sherlock, in spite of himself, almost laughs. In spite of himself, Mycroft almost joins in. But his smile vanishes quickly, "Hush, Sherlock. Don't tell it anything."

The Uncle, in the meantime, knows what lies ahead. He is struggling his way through making breakfast ina strange kitchen. Very large kitchen it is too. He likes to be able to reach the kettle and the toaster at once, not having to jog a few minutes in between. Still, it's not as though they'll be staying any more nights here.

He has no idea where they _will_ be staying, but he'll think about that later on.

The kitchen has a breakfast bar. The children are enjoying the novelty of it, though the Uncle's heart is in his mouth every time one of them leans over. The stools are taller than they are. "Are you sure you wouldn't rather eat in front of the telly?" he bribes.

"But it's a _breakfast_ bar," John says, immovable, "And this is breakfast."

Can't really argue with that.

"And the telly has dust on it," Amelia mumbles.

The rest nod along; a television which has had time to accumulate dust is equally disturbing to all of them. Were he to be entirely honest, the Uncle would have to say it disturbs him too. He's Time-Lord enough to admit that he cried the day the four of them declared they were too old to watch Peppa Pig anymore. He'd never find out if George's dinosaur managed to survive the inevitable meteor holocaust and consequent ice age that extinguished almost all remnant of his race.

But in the interests of balanced parenting… "Now, Mycroft just prefers other pursuits. Like reading. And baking, but you're not supposed to tell anyone about that."

Amelia still cannot forgive a dusty TV, "_I_ like reading and baking too, but I also like TV. I like drawing, and running, and skipping, and none of that stops me liking TV."

"Besides," says John, and he's got that look about the eyes where the Uncle can tell he's got a really good point lined up. "Besides, at six o'clock every night when we're trying to watch Wizards Versus Aliens, one of you Uncles comes in and turns it over. You said adults _have_ to watch the news. You said it's compulsory, or the Queen will come to arrest you. So why doesn't Uncle Mycroft _have_ to watch the news?"

"Because he knows what the news is going to be before the news happens. He's exempt. And anyway, the Queen would never hurt him. They're, like, best buds."

The Uncle had thought that was a good thing to say. Quite a cool thing, quite a hip, groovy thing, quite down-with-the-kids. So why, then, do four little faces suddenly look down into the milk dregs at the bottom of their cereal bowls? Why do four little sets of feet start swinging? Why does Molly immediately begin to distract herself, gathering the leftovers into one bowl? The Uncle waits until she has made the epic descent from the lofty stool to the floor tiles before he speaks again, though mostly due to fear of startling her into falling. Then, when her little hands appear, waving in the air, trying to find the bowl on the edge, he folds himself across to hand it to her more safely.

It's while he's thus incapacitated, with his feet just leaving the floor and a damp patch spreading across his shirt, that Rory leans around, sticking his little face up close, "Is the Queen the Moffiss?"

"No," he says, "the Queen's lovely." And the Uncle flips himself back to his feet. He'd like to explain something to them, but there's a little click from miles away, which turns out to be the toaster popping, so he makes the trek to fetch it. Comes back, realizes he forgot the butter and goes for that, only to find that the toast is now cold.

Stranger's kitchen or not, the Uncle unplugs the toaster, brings it close. Now, while the toast is reheating (and getting just that little bit darker than John likes, you can tell from his wrinkling nose), he can begin.

"The Queen," he tells them, "_knows_ of the Gaffatt. But there's really very little she can do about him. She once asked Uncle Mycroft to try, and look what happened. But that's not his fault either. He was doing something very brave and he got caught out. The important thing is never whether you win the battle, it's having the bravery to fight."

Those bloodthirsty boys of his nod sagely. The girls don't look convinced. They are, after all, _so_ much more practical. Amelia rolls her eyes, "That doesn't help _us_ though, does it?"

"You're _so_ Scottish," the Uncle tells her. "Now listen to me, all of you, celt and colonist alike. You've all done very well lately. In particular, last night. But we need you to be brave again, just one more time. Your Uncle Sherlock and I are going to have a chat with that naughty bit of Gaffatt hanging around his brother's head. Nothing to worry about, it'll be securely tied down. Very securely, last time I checked on them. It might get quite loud, though. I want you not to be afraid if you hear shouting. I think you'll agree, we'd all like to shout at the Moffiss, wouldn't we?"

"I wanna box him!" John says suddenly, and puts his fists up to show just what he intends to do. "With a left hook and a right hook, and a sock in the jaw."

Rory turns to him, "What have socks got to do with boxing?"

"I don't know, but it's what you say."

Amelia raises her hand, waving eagerly, "Ooh! Ooh, Rory found a sword, we could use the sword."

"Stop-stop-stop-stop-stop!" cries the Uncle, putting his hands over his ears, "_Heavens_, you're all _lethal_! Where would all this leave poor old Mycroft, eh?" They sink, blushing and ashamed. The toast pops up for the second time. Gently, patiently, the Uncle removes it and begins to butter it, one slice each. "These are very scary times. It is very easy, during very scary times, to overreact. You humans do it all the time. Usually you end up in a war with millions dead. So does overreacting really sound like the thing to do?"

In crushed chorus, "No, Uncle."

"No indeed, Children. Now, we Time-Lords never had any wars – close your mouth, Amelia, nobody likes a know-it-all – because we were so good at not overreacting. If, for instance, a nasty Silurian hurts you, don't go to war and kill loads of Silurians without even asking if they're nasty or nice. Have a word with that one nasty Silurian and see what's the blooming matter with them! - John, Rory, if you each give her a hand, we ought to be able to get Molly back up at eye-level… _Much_ better – Where was I? Oh, yes, _reasoning with the enem… _Well, no. No, the Gaffatt has proven itself most unreasonable but… I _was_ making a point, I just can't quite… Oh yes. Yes. We will certainly not be taking anything out on poor old Mycroft, alright?"

From the other room, and beginning to sound really rather tired of his captivity, "Less of the _old_, if you please, I _can_ hear you."

"I'd better hurry up, Children, because it sounds like he's getting catty. Now finish your breakfasts, don't worry about the dishes, and _stay away from that door_, alright?"

He pats their heads in turn as he rushes out of the kitchen. But he's in rather too much of a hurry and it comes across like he's trying to play them like a xylophone. By the time he gets to the end, Rory has had time to duck. The Uncle doesn't even seem to notice.

In the order that they were pushed down like so many buttons, they starts to get down from the stools. Amelia is first, and does it with a little jump and no regard whatsoever for the others. She leads the way, less than one step behind the Uncle, except that his legs are very long and hers are very short. He's gotten into Mycroft's office and closed the door before she's even close enough to hear.

John is the next to climb down, lowering himself from the breakfast bar. He stops to help Molly and by then Rory has reached the floor. They, as a unit, go out and get about halfway across the hall. "Amelia," Rory hisses. "He said to stay away from the door!"

Amelia looks back. She would _like_ to look over her shoulder, but her proportions don't exactly allow for that yet, and she has to turn. She can shrug, though, she's got that down to an art. "I'm not _touching_ it."

"No," Molly says. Throws up her hands and goes back to find Scrabble. No. Sorry, no, no way, she's not doing it. There are rules for a reason. When the reason is the Gaffatt, Molly is _following_ the rules. The rest of them can do what they want and she won't get in the way or tell, but she is not, repeat _not_ going to stand outside that door when they were told not to.

She is _very_ surprised when small steps come up beside her. Even more surprised to look up and find that it's Rory. He's usually so brave, and he usually does _anything_ that Amelia is doing. But he looks small and sad. He's looking down at his shoes. "I'm not scared or anything," he says, even though he looks a bit scared. "I'm just still really tired after last night."

"Thanks," Molly says, "For staying up and watching over us."

"That's okay," he says. But he's starting to smile.

"There's a sofa in the next room. The Uncle said it's a drawing room, but Amelia looked and there's no markers or anything. But there's a sofa. You could still sleep."

Grudgingly, "Maybe even, just, like, lie down or something."

"Yeah. C'mon Scrabble, let's go."

Rory watches the cat leave the milk behind to trot happily behind Molly. "How'd you get her to start doing what you say again?"

"Oh," Molly beams, glad that somebody's finally noticed. It's really very clever and she wanted to tell everybody, but that wouldn't be a nice, proper thing to do. Now she can. "See, she's learned that food comes out of tins, right? So what I started doing is carrying this!" She produces a tin opener from the pocket of her dressing gown. Even at this, Scrabble's head jerks up. Rory nods, impressed.

"Cool."

In the hall, John watches them. Molly keeps her eyes down, but Rory has the courage to glance over, whispering, "We're just in this room where the sofa is."

John gives him a thumbs-up, then turns back to Amelia. "That's not very far away."

"Good. They're close if we need them."

"No, I meant-"

"I know what you meant. You can go if you want, John. But if the Uncles need me I'm going to be right here right next to them."

"You're right," he tells her, and they both stand square to the door, with their arms folded and their faces set, and they _do not move_, except that Amelia still has her toast in one hand and they pass it back and forth to share.

In case the Children had decided to come in, the Uncles are standing in much the same pose. They are also shoulder to shoulder. They are also sharing a piece of toast. They have their arms folded, otherwise. But they're not looking _at_ the door, but leaning against it. They too are whispering.

"It'll be all of them," Sherlock says, "When have you ever known them to _voluntarily_ separate?"

The Uncle has a think. "Olympics. When the archery was on BBC One and the gymnastics was on BBC Two. Nearly had a civil war on our hands then."

"Thank God for iPlayer…"

"No, mark my words, Sherlock, there's less than four out there. Just don't know which of them it is." A moment's silence passes. Then, in perfect unison, both nodding, "Amelia."

Sherlock picks up. "Given that he seems to have taken charge last night, it wouldn't be unthinkable that Rory might have left her to it for once. Rory's walking away would have validated Molly's _usual_ fear-"

"I think you mean her common sense, Sherlock."

"Same thing. – Allowing her to follow. John, then, wouldn't have abandoned Amelia, or anyway I wouldn't like to think so."

The Uncle nods. These are good conclusions. He believes. He takes a deep breath, lifts his voice as loud as he dares, and rushes out, "John-Watson-and-Amelia-Pond-what-were-you-told-about-this-door?!" A yelp from Amelia, and John gasping, and the sound of little feet _booting it_ down the corridor; the Uncle starts to giggle. Sherlock doesn't mean to but…

"Well played," he says, and it sets him off. They shake hands like doctors after a tricky operation and crease up. Exhaustion might have something to do with their hysteria. But whatever the root, they are beginning to feel just that little bit better.

"Oh, no," says Mycroft. The laughter stops much harder than it started, screeches to a halt, an emergency stop that would cause a pile-up if there was anything behind to crash into it. "No, no," he's still saying, nose twitching as though there were some foul smell in the room. "Oh, Sherlock, no. You should never laugh. Your face looks _awful_ when you laugh."

"Doesn't mean he shouldn't," the Uncle snaps. And he doesn't mind snapping, because it has become very clear, that is no longer poor old Mycroft doing the talking.

The Moffiss, having denied the pleasure of laughter to one of its' favourite sons, laughs itself. "If only that was your decision to make, Doctor. But I'm afraid that's something I'll be keeping in the family, as it were. Oh, while we're on that, actually. I just wanted to say thank you, Sherlock. Most informative, our little chat in the small hours. Most of it was useless… But I _am_ thinking about Operation now… It's not the funny bone, though."

"It was," Sherlock growls. "It was _always_ the funny bone."

"No, no. Funny bone is _good_. It would make a wonderful joke. Only, it would be _me_ that drops the piece, not you-"

"That's not the story!"

"-And you would be the one commenting that I have no sense of humour. Yes, yes funny bone makes a good joke." The Gaffatt curls up Mycroft's lip, still toying with the idea. "But it's _just_ a joke, isn't it? And nothing is ever _just_ a joke. Then you'd have to laugh. No, it needs something else. A _sssssting_, in the tail…"

"You told it real things?" the Uncle hisses in Sherlock's ear. Sherlock bites his lip and stays silent. Slightly panicked, the Uncle echoes, "_You told it real things_! Forgive me, but isn't the whole idea of this little escape of ours to keep the _real things_ away from the damned thing?"

"It was four in the morning, I had to get Mycroft out, what did you want me to do?"

The Moffiss, sensing that it's being ignored, starts to think out loud. "Let's see, let's see, what other pieces are in a game of Operation? Wrenched ankle, water on the knee, oh, none of these are even funny… Butterflies in the stomach, that has potential but… _Ah_! Ah, yes. I've got it. I know what I'll drop, for you to comment on. Let's make it the broken heart."

"That isn't the story!"

Sherlock slams both his hands down on the desk. He leans, and it brings him close, close enough for the Moffiss to gnash Mycroft's teeth, almost close enough to have his nose skinned by them, and the Gaffatt hisses through its shark grin, "It is now."

It is quite as though a shadow had passed over the sun, and left the bright, airy room in a moment's dark chill. It is briefer than the first flare of a match before the flame settles, and yet it does the work of wildfire; when the moment has passed, something is gone. All of a sudden, Sherlock knows only one story, about ever having played Operation with his elder brother. Mycroft drops the broken heart, and Sherlock makes a scathing comment on it. Witty, and poignant. Not funny enough to laugh at.

That's the only story he knows. It comes accompanied by a feeling of great sorrow.

He knows he's lost something very important. He doesn't know what it was. He'll never know it again. And soon, even the knowledge that something was ever there to begin with will evaporate, and the memory of it will seem like an illusion, and this, too, shall fade.

"Sherlock?"

The voice has lost some of its depth, the forced, echoing roundness. The Uncle peers over Sherlock's shoulder and sees the confusion and betrayal in Mycroft's eyes. He's back. He's back already and the Gaffatt is gone.

"Sherlock, what happened? What's the matter?"

"No!" Sherlock dives across the desk, grabbing his brother by the shirtfront. "No! I know you're still in there. Bring it back! That was _mine_, bring it back!" The Uncle takes hold and hauls him back. He doesn't quite let go, and Mycroft's chair rattles him as it falls back down.

Sherlock wraps his hand around the Uncle's collar instead. "Please. Please, did I ever tell you a story, about me and Mycroft and… and a board game, it was… it was a boa- it was… _Operation_! Did I ever tell you we played Operation?"

"Yes," the Uncle says, trying to calm him. "Yes, you did. You told me 'Mycroft never could handle a broken heart'. Is… is that the story you mean?"

Sherlock sinks against the desk, cradles his head. Says distantly, "It is now." He lingers for only a moment before he forces himself to his feet again. Goes to Mycroft and does enough of the belt buckles that he can free himself of the rest. "Come on, Uncle," he mutters, "We're getting away from here. Kids, cat, Tardis, not too difficult."

"Wait," says Mycroft, in the process of extracting himself.

"Nope," Sherlock replies. But the Uncle puts out a hand to stop him storming away. Nods toward the elder Holmes, and the younger slowly turns around. "_What_?"

"There's a place." Mycroft has only one hand free, but he neglects the other and reaches for the desk drawer. "You'll be safe there."

"Forgive me, Mycroft, but you're the last person I'd trust to direct me to a safe haven just now."

"You don't understand. _I_ don't know where it is."

Sherlock rolls his eyes. Tries to walk out again. The Uncle grabs his shoulder and forcibly turns him (much the same way he would with one of the Children, but he tries to put that from his mind). Sherlock allows this, but no more. He won't move from this spot, he won't speak another word. It's the hurt, the betrayal. Even if he doesn't know what he's hurt and betrayed over, he feels it and it hurts.

So the Uncle goes to the desk. The Uncle listens to Mycroft's explanation. "A young woman came here. It was quite some time ago now. She gave me this, and said I'd know when the time came to use it. I dismissed it at first but… Lately it had begun to feel important. I fetched it out from where it was buried and decided to keep it close."

It is a plain white envelope, with an undisturbed seal. On the back, in a fine purple felt-tip, the words have been written – _A Place for the Doctor and Sherlock and the Kids_ (here, the writer momentarily became an artist and drew a little smiley face) _– __if_ _you boys are clever enough to come and find me_!


	20. Chapter 20

An uneasy peace has fallen over Uncle Mycroft's house. It's been quiet for a while now. The Children were worried at first. They gathered together on the hearth and glanced suspiciously from time to time at the dusty television, but didn't say a word. They stayed that way until they heard the unruffled voices of _both_ Uncles in the hall outside the office where the interrogation had taken place. Only Molly showed any sign of any anxiety that they hadn't heard Uncle Mycroft's either.

"But… But what if something… What if the Moffiss was _finished_ with him, and it-?"

"Yeah," Amelia said, not sounding overly concerned, "That'd be really awful." She knows he went through her sketchbook. She found it this morning with greasy fingerprints all over and a sad face drawn above her favourite picture of the Gaffatt under their inevitable attack. She needs a new one now. There are still blank pages scattered through the book, but that doesn't matter. In fact, she wishes she had it now and she could put it in the fireplace.

In short, Amelia is really not that bothered what happens to someone who could in a place like this, all full of Moffiss, all full of Moffiss himself.

She is, however, a _bit_ bothered about Rory. He's using the edge of the sofa for a pillow and Scrabble across his knees like a rug. He's pretending to sleep. But a few times now Amelia has caught him listening to things or opening his eyes. She's a _bit_ bothered about that. So she gets up from the hearth, goes over and _flumpf_s herself down on the couch above. "Just lying down," she says, for the benefit of John and Molly. "Just resting my eyes!" Then, once her head is down on her curled up arms she whispers to Rory, "Are you alright?"

The tiniest little scratch of fabric as he sneakily nods.

"Okay then."

So, left alone and thinking the other two are sleepy, John and Molly look at each other. "Do you want to play a game?" he says.

"What game?"

"Um… Riddles!" Uncle Sherlock teaches them riddles. Well, no, that's not quite true. He tells them riddles and then refuses to tell them the answer. Weeks at a time have been lost to head-scratching. How could they ever forget the trauma of 'what gets wetter as it dries'? The Uncle had to intervene when he found the four children standing in a row all knocking their heads against the wall over _what gets wetter as it dries_.

Molly cried for sixteen straight hours, which was right through the next school day and rather difficult to explain. John couldn't face bath time for a week afterward.

But it has left them with an excellent stock of puzzles for each other.

"Okay," Molly says, "I'll start. Um… poor people have me, rich people need me, if you eat me you'll die. What am I?"

"Nothing."

"Well done! Your turn."

John thinks hard. Molly is very clever and anyway, all their riddles come from the same source. He has to pick one that Uncle Sherlock is unlikely to have told her before.

This is his selection. "A man is driving down the road. He doesn't have his headlights on, and there's no moon in the sky. All of a sudden a woman runs out in front of him, but he stops in time. How was he able to see her?"

Molly immediately goes to work. She reconstructs the scene of the near collision in her mind and focuses on it. No headlights, no moon. What other sources of light could there be?

"Oh!" she cries. Then lowers her voice because Rory and Amelia are, after all, both pretending to sleep. "Oh, I've got it, I've got it. The woman was on her phone. He saw the light from her mobile."

"No!" John laughs, just as loudly. He too lowers his voice for the sake of the pretenders, "You're wrong! It's so simple. He didn't have the lights on and there was no moon because it was daytime."

"Oh." Molly wilts. That _is_ quite simple. Or maybe it's just simple because John already knew. But she feels tricked. She feels like he implied night time heavily enough that it's really not fair to turn around and tell her she's _wrong_ just right off like that. "But-" she begins, "But mine works too."

"No it doesn't, because if it was daytime he wouldn't even be able to _notice_ the light from her phone, it would be drowned out."

"No, but my version is at night-time."

"But she ran out in front of him, _Molly_, it would be too quick."

"It depends how open his field of vision is, _John_. If there were woods on either side of the road, fine, yes, too quick. But if it's big fields or desert or something he'd have seen her coming miles away. So I'm not wrong after all, am I?"

"You're still wrong because it's not the _proper_ answer."

"It's still an answer that still works!" Molly can feel her fists balling up. She starts to stand. John, too, feels himself getting up, even before he really knows why. Maybe that's why they're called stand-up rows. You stand up. Whether you mean to or not, you just do. "You can't call me wrong when I'm actually right!"

"But you're only right if it was night-time and the whole riddle is based around it being day-time, so you're wrong!"

They are square to each other now, face to face and shouting.

Rory lifts his head up from his arm and whispers to Amelia, "Should we be pretend-wakened because they're shouting? Or do we stay pretend asleep?"

She considers that, and lifts up her elbow to ask out from underneath, "How deep pretend-asleep are you?"

"Pretty deep, yeah."

"So you should probably grumble and shift, but stay asleep. But yeah, probably I should be pretend-wakened."

"Will we go for that, then?"

"I think we should, before we become unbelievable."

So Rory, as discussed, grumbles and shifts, before settling back into his little space. Amelia peels herself up, with a _big_ pretend-yawn and a big-stretch. Overkill, in Rory's opinion, but then he's still pretend-asleep and can't tell her so. "What are you doing?" Amelia yawns over at the fight. "What are you shouting for?"

But the only answer Amelia gets is that John points at her and barks out quickly, "There's no way Amelia had been lying down long enough to need a yawn and a stretch that big-" Rory nods sagely where no one can notice him, "-therefore she wasn't asleep at all and just pretending to make Rory feel better!"

Rory snaps up straight, "What?!"

But John isn't paying attention, and only turns back to Molly and says, "Ha! So I solved that one and I'm still smarter because I know that the sun's in the sky when the moon isn't!"

Molly can feel the beginnings of tears making her eyes hot, her voice tight, but she's not done yet, no, sir. Molly's not even on the ropes yet, and shouts back, "Not-even-necessarily-or-anything-because-what-about-dawn-and-sunset-or-in-the-winter-when-you-can-still-see-the-moon-and-!"

"Amelia, I don't need you to make me feel better, I'm alright!" "I swear, I was actually sleepy, he's just being really stupid!" "I'm not stupid, I'm smarter than Molly and I'm probably smarter than the rest of you!" "Don't shout at Amelia when you were wrong anyway, it was nothing about making me feel better because I don't need to feel better." "You do because you're scared of the Gaffatt because of last night." "Shut up, Molly, I'm not scared of anything!"

The door is suddenly flung open with a great thud against the wall. There stand the Uncles, looks cool and detached. Not angry, but not happy either. They glance at each other and then back, to the laboured breathing of the four red-faced, raging Children.

Uncle Mycroft, apparently still tied up in the office, groans loudly, "Do watch the wallpaper, won't you?"

That noise is all they need. From hearth, from rug, and jumping down from sofa, the four of them rush, each claiming a leg to tug on, each trying to give their version of the tale all at once. Rory is at such pains to deny ever feeling anything that might be called fear that he almost drags the Uncle down to his knees. Another glance, and the Uncles lean down at once. One hand per child, they push the lot of them back to a safe distance, separated equally from legs and each other.

"Now," says the Uncle, "we _were_ going to ask for your help with this-" and he shows them the mysterious envelope with the purple writing on it. "But I'm not entirely sure you can all be trusted to work together right now."

Uncle Sherlock sways his head. "Brief analysis of body language and all of them having faces like wet trout can confirm those suspicions, Uncle."

"Therefore, we'd better get to the bottom of this."

A hard wooden chair is brought from the corner of the room and set in front of the fireplace. Molly is the first one to be picked up and set down on it. "Young Miss Hooper," says the Uncle, in his very best courtroom voice, "What on earth was all the blooming shouting about?"

"John said I was wrong when I wasn't."

"Oh. Oh, well, that is a terrible slight."

"_But it's not true because she wasn't right anyway and_-"

"Bailiff," the Uncle mutters, and nods to Uncle Sherlock.

Sherlock sweeps down and bundles John up into the armchair. "The defendant will kindly calm down before we hold him in contempt. There is one more murmur of protest, but under the sharp eyes of both the cross-examiner and the bailiff, John falls sullenly silent.

Now the Uncle turns back to trying his case. He paces back and forth across the parquet, "Explain for us, Miss Hooper, if you possibly can, what exactly happened?"

"Well, John told me a riddle. And I gave him an answer. He said I was wrong, just because it wasn't the answer he'd heard. But my answer was right too, just in a different way."

For the benefit of the judge and jury (who are also the Uncle) the riddle is repeated, and both answers are presented for his approval. He sits down on the couch, between Rory and Amelia, and has a good ponder over those. He thinks as loudly as he possibly can, with lots of 'hmm' and 'haaa', lots of nodding and shaking his head and making little gestures in the air.

Then, finally, "I'm ready to deliver a verdict, if you'd all like to hear it? In the case of Hooper vs Watson, I find in favour of the plaintiff." Only Sherlock begins to applaud. "Of Molly," the Uncle corrects, and that's enough. Rory and Amelia give a little cheer. John, however, is up out of the dock-slash-armchair in a flash, and crosses to stand in front of the judge.

And he is _definitely_ not going read and _definitely_ not starting to cry, but it's all very unfair and he asks the only question that ever matters to an eight-year-old boy; "_Why_?"

"Because the original riddle does not state that it was day or night. It's a _flawed_ riddle. Under the rules that the riddle sets out, Molly is as right as you are."

"Oi!" shouts the Bailiff, clearly no longer worried about being held in contempt. "I taught him that riddle!"

"Well, I'm sorry, old spud, but it's an awful one. Now, Children, why is a raven like a writing desk?" The aggrieved Bailiff clears his throat and points to either side of the Uncle. He'd quite forgotten that Rory and Amelia aren't speaking either. So the Judge, Jury and Uncle whistles the Bailiff in. Miss Hooper is removed from the stand and Mr Williams put in her place.

While he squirms, adjusting to the hard seat, the Uncle reaches for John. He pulls him up under his arm and whispers, "Wasn't your fault. Was that silly other Uncle of yours. He'll stand there and argue that it's not a riddle if you state what time of day it is. And that's a point. But really it's a little bit of a cheat. I think you see that now, don't you?"

"S'pose so…"

He'll get over it. They'd have forgotten on their own, but there wasn't time to let them. The Courtroom drama is elaborate, but it speeds things along considerably.

"Now," and the Uncle turns to his next plaintiff, "Mr Williams, what is _your_ great big grumpiness today?"

"Molly said I was scared of the Gaffatt. And John was backing her up. And they said Amelia was only pretending to sleep next to me so I'd feel better about it."

"But…" The Uncle furrows his brow in a mockery of confusion, "But aren't you all afraid of the Moffiss? I know I am. Uncle Sherlock?"

"Terrified."

"Rory, frankly I'd be worried about you if you weren't. So that answers for John and Molly. As to Amelia, I'm not saying she did or didn't want you to feel better. But _if_, just _if_, just for the sake of argument _if_, if she had, wouldn't that have been a nice thing for her to do? No, sorry, resting my case on that one. Get out, before I book you all for wasting the court's time." The Children, looking thoroughly unsure of what just happened, slide down from their seats and begin a slow, nebulous migration towards the door. "Nah, I'm only joking. All of you, get up here round me."

They rush back to hop up on the couch, burying his arms and knees in a dogpile all love and gratitude and pointy little joints that take the smile off his face. Sherlock pulls the witness stand over and sits down close. He's got the white envelope in his hands. And now that the Children can be trusted, he passes it to Amelia.

Reading from the cover she says, "A place for the Doctor and Sherlock and the Kids – smiley face – if you boys are clever enough to find me. What does that mean?"

"It means whoever wrote that wasn't very clever herself," Uncle Sherlock informs her.

"It's a woman?" Molly pipes up.

"Obviously. I'll explain to you when you're older."

John whispers across to her, "Purple pen," and receives a thoroughly _venomous_ look for his efforts.

"Anyway, I happen to know she isn't very clever, because she has only addressed it to your Uncle and myself. Which means she was forgetting that we have four very bright little friends to help us out. Don't we, Uncle?"

"Absolutely. Rory, open that envelope, would you?"

The Uncles watch, and the Children gather with bated breath, while Rory tears the top open.

There is one small slip of paper inside. Rory squints at it for a while. John is the first one to sigh and fall back, flopping into the sofa cushions to moan, "It's a _riddle_…"

Molly takes the slip and reads as prettily as she can -

_"Detective, remember yellow paint_

_Doctor, remember love's restraint_

_Littlest, where do all letters start?_

_Ginger, what did you get in art?_

_Boys, dulce et decorum what ?,_

_And pirates drink what when they're hot?"_

Amelia stretches out her foot and laughs, kicking Sherlock's knee, "She didn't forget about us at all!"

* * *

><p>[AN - Guys, I'm sorry that updates have been so patchy on this tale. It's harder to write than most, to keep coming up with stuff and make the style consistent. I've decided, in order to get it totally right (because you all deserve that) I'm going to update it once a month, religiously, last week of the month. And they will be worth it, I make that my promise to you.

Sorry... :(

Sal]


End file.
